Europe Youth Top-10 | 1 Oct 2020
Sophia KLEE: My aim is the medal rostrum
Photo: ITTF
Junior Girls Event at the European Youth Top 10 in Berlin
The host nation representative at the forthcoming European Youth Top 10 to be held In Berlin from 9th to 11th October is Sophia KLEE seeded at the position no. four in the Junior Girls Event. On the same list are also Isa COK and Prithika PAVADE (France), Elizabet ABRAAMIAN (Russia), Darya KISEL (Belarus), Elena ZAHARIA (Romania), Natalia MALININA (Russia), Linda ZADEROVA (Czech Republic), Helga DARI (Hungary) and Reka BEZEG (Serbia).
"All the adversaries are very hard to beat. It will be great challenge, but I hope I will achieve my goal and my aim is to be at the medal rostrum. I am seeded at the fourth position, but I hope I will reach the place among top three players at the end," said Sophia. "It has been a while since I saw those girls. My last tournament was Under 21 European Championships in Croatia and I do not know the current shape of other girls. Elena ZAHARIA, Prithika PAVADE and Elizabet ABRAAMIAN are always dangerous."
Sophia also added:"Against ABRAAMIAN I played so many times. It is always very close and I think our record is 50:50. ZAHARIA is very dangerous for me. She beat me in singles at the European championships in 2017, but I recorded the victory against her in Varazdin at Under 21 this year. Against KISEL I played long time ago, I overcame COK and only player I did not manage to beat from the list is PAVADE. She beat me twice."
KLEE knows how to win the title at the competition with such system of play. She won gold in England 2017 in the Cadet category.
"I am in a very good shape, since I was practice a lot. The only problem is that I am little bit tired. I am in the last year of school. I had so many tests in past period. I write so many exams, sometime three by day. I have to learn a lot…"
Like everyone else she was forced to change the pace during Pandemic.
"I was very lucky because I could practice in the hall since it is three minutes from my home. We started to play there after four weeks of Pandemic, but even before that time, I played in my basement. Literally I did not have a break and I worked during whole period," explained KLEE. "From April school started, exams, lectures, practice…I was little bit hard. Then I start with the trainings in Dusseldorf. I had very good sparing partners. I took the best from the moment."
KLEE looking forward Top 10.
"A lot of national federation looking for the options how to organize the tournaments again. We already started with the competitions; Bundesliga is in the full swing and we had a lot of tournaments in Germany. It is important that we established the rules and everyone follows it, so we can play our sport again. In Berlin our national federation is using same concept, I know it will be very safe and I am looking forward the tournament," said KLEE.
Klee won the title in Doubles with BONDAREVA as cadet at the European Championship and she also clinched the title in Team's Event. In junior's Sophia is three times singles and two times doubles national champion and in cadet's she won gold twice and once in doubles in Germany. With BONDAREVA, KLEE won bronze in senior's national championships.
Top seed in the Junior Boys Singles Event at the European Youth Top 10 is Samuel KULCZYCKI (Poland). In the same Event will also play his compatriot Maciej KUBIK. The list goes on with Csaba ANDRAS (Hungary), Ivor BAN (Croatia), Olav KOSOLOSKY and Adrien RASSENFOSSE (Belgium), Kay STUMPER (Germany), Maksim GREBNEV (Russia), Filip DELINCAK (Slovakia) and Tomas MARTINKO (Czech Republic).
In Cadets Girls Event will play: Anna BRZYSKA (Poland), Sophie EARLEY (Ireland), Charlotte LUTZ (France), Annett KAUFMANN (Germany), Helena SOMMEROVA (Czech Republic), Anna HURSEY (Wales), Anastasiia BERESNEVA (Russia), Anastasiia IVANOVA (Russia), Dominika WILTSCHKOVA and Julie VAN HAUWAERT (Belgium).
List of the cadets starts with Darius MOVILEANU (Romania) and goes on with his two compatriots Iulian CHIRITA and Andrei Teodor BERZOSA ISTRATE. From the fourth position to tenth position are Daniel BERZOSA (Spain), Sergey RYZHOV (Russia), Mateusz ZALEWSKI (Poland), Jakub GOLDIR (Slovakia), Gabrielius CAMARA (Netherlands), Lleyton ULLMANN (Germany) and Felix LEBRUN (France).
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