Edges and Nets

Timo Boll recently did an interview with the German Newspaper Fuldaer Zeitung. We provide a rough translation (courtesy of Google Translate) of the interview. Additional notes for clarity were inserted in italics.

When Timo Boll comes to Maberzell [a table tennis club], a full house is guaranteed. The coronavirus lockdowns prevent this. Instead of signing autographs, the 39-year-old table tennis superstar from Borussia Düsseldorf [a table tennis club] takes time for an interview and to discuss personal matters.

At 16 you still have dreams. How about 39?

Ambition is definitely there. However, every day is no longer the same as the next. Sometimes I’m just the same and full of energy. Then there are days when I wake up and it pinches all over the place. I am currently in a very good phase. I feel like I can definitely fight for medals at the Tokyo Olympics.

How much are the corona restrictions hindering the preparations for your sixth Olympic Games in Tokyo?

Not particularly. I play a lot of Bundesliga games and can go through my training program during the week. For me as an older player, it is not so problematic not to fly around the world to play in international tournaments. So I have my routine and do not need to constantly change time zones and temperatures. That’s good for me.

Then there will definitely be more time for your family.

Yes, I’ve never been home for so long in one go. Our Champions League bubble in Düsseldorf – that was nine or ten days – felt like forever. Otherwise that was the standard. I was on the road for one to three weeks at a time and had the suitcases brought to the airport to have fresh laundry again. Now I get something from my daughter’s childhood. That’s why I don’t want to complain too much.

Your daughter Zoey is seven years old. Who is responsible for homeschooling?

I’ll do it.

Do you have the peace and quiet you need?

Yes, but sport makes me a perfectionist. I sometimes find myself having high expectations of her after all. I really have to pull myself out at times.

Would you be a born elementary school teacher?

I would have to re-educate myself a bit. As a competitive athlete, I am very meticulous and almost obsessed with details. You can’t be in elementary school. If the E or O is not so nicely curved, you have to look over it without having a fit. This meticulousness made me so good as an athlete and is perhaps a weakness as a teacher.

Your hairstyle fits. What’s the secret?

I am very lucky that my wife is a trained hairdresser. She hasn’t worked for 15 years, but she hasn’t forgotten how to do it. So I’m happy to have the cut now without doing something that is forbidden [by covid restrictions].

You radiate calm. Can you get mad at anything?

We have just had a young puppy again. It’s ten weeks old and full of energy. If he bites a table or chair leg for the 25th time, I really have to keep my composure. It tingles inside me.

Athletes are welcome guests on a wide variety of television formats. Would you consider a job in the jungle camp, at Let’s Dance or the ultra-hard sports show Eternal Heroes?

The Eternal Heroes was partly a very funny show with a couple of very good challenges. The other is just too extreme. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m not the type of person who wants to be the center of attention. And that’s what these shows are made for.

Are there plans for a life after an active career?

Of course, you make a few thoughts. In my head I’m still too much an athlete and table tennis player. I still enjoy it too much. The thought of it hurts me. I am grateful that things are still going so well at this high level. I will try to drag out the end of my career as long as possible. There will probably never be anything more that I can do so well and that I enjoy so much. I’ll probably have to be dragged off the record at some point.