Germany’s table tennis fans have voted Timo BOLL “Player of the Year” for the 17th time in total. The World Singles Championships bronze medallist from Houston Olympic Team silver medallist and European Singles Champion relagating Dimitrij OVTCHAROV and Valentin BAUS to second and third place.
In the women’s category Nina MITTELHAM is once again at the top of the fans’ favourites. The young talent award for the best performance in 2021 again goes to 15-year-old Annett KAUFMANN who receives this honour for the third time in a row. The election of the “Player of the Year” is a campaign of the German Table Tennis Association JOOLA and the website myTischtennis.de.
“2021 was one of the most successful years of my career ” says 40-year-old Timo BOLL. “With Borussia Düsseldorf we have collected all possible titles the Olympic medal shines especially beautifully.”
Boll won the poll with 37 per cent of the votes outshining even Dimitrij OVTCHAROV (23.4 %) despite his individual Olympic medal and Paralympic winner Valentin BAUS (21.5 %). “Of course I am happy and grateful for the great fan support. Dima and Valentin certainly deserved to win as well because of their successes.” Full of excitement the world number eight is now looking forward to the coming months. “I’m excited to see what 2022 brings I’m working hard and I’m sure that if health and fitness play along I can continue to achieve a lot.”
The European mixed and team champion Europe Top 16 winner and German singles champion Nina MITTELHAM did not necessarily expect the award again after her status as a replacement player in Tokyo. “So of course it’s all the nicer. It makes me happy when my achievements are noticed ” says the 25-year-old expressing her gratitude.This year MITTELHAM wants to reach the top 20 in the world rankings; she is currently five places short of that.
The result was clearest in the “newcomer” category. Over 70 per cent of the fans voted for the shooting star Annett KAUFMANN. That is almost four times as many votes as those cast for Kay STUMPER (17.3 %) and Mia GRIESEL (12 %). KAUFMANN who also won the “Newcomer of the Year” award in December in the national Sportspeople of the Year election across all sports thus won the table tennis poll for the third time in a row. “To achieve the hattrick is something very special for me. I am very grateful for the support of so many people ” the 15-year-old outstanding talent is happy to say. In addition to the gold coup at the U21 European Championships in Belgium KAUFMANN celebrated the European team title with the German women’s national team in Romania as well as three gold medals at the European Youth Championships in cadets and was runner-up in the doubles event at the World Junior Championships.
