Your teammates and last year's European Championship final opponents Petrissa Solja and Xiaona Shan are not competing in women's doubles this year, does that increase the pressure on you and your doubles partner Nina Mittelham?
Sabine Winter: "The medal chances for Germany are still there, but there are no longer two pairs fighting for the title. Nevertheless, two doubles will start and maybe our youngstars (Annett Kaufmann/Franziska Schreiner, editor's note) will surprise. But that doesn't really increase the pressure on us, because Nina (Mittelham, editor's note) and I want to attack and play for the medals anyway, so we put pressure on ourselves, regardless of other top doubles pairings from Germany. We're looking from match to match, but of course it would be nice to end up even higher up than last year."
You also competed in the mixed competition, where are the differences compared to the doubles? Is the communication between each other perhaps a little easier?
Sabine Winter: "The communication is very similar in mixed and doubles. In terms of the system, the matches are a little different, since the men play a little firmer and faster overall than the women. This results in a somewhat different game. Since I hadn't played mixed in a very long time, it was more of an adjustment."
Were you able to draw any conclusions from the mixed game that could help you further?
Sabine Winter: "I think the mixed match was actually reasonable in terms of play, even though we lost 3-0. The sets were close and there is no reason for me to complain about my game. I will take away from this that I played reasonably and can go into the match with self-confidence despite the defeat. I know now that it works out in terms of play and I will certainly call that up on the table."
Interview: Noah Eberhardt, Jan Cederic Mann & Paul Treutwein
Photo: Jan Cederic Mann