Last updated: December 30, 2022Sofia Polcanova is a professional table tennis player from Austria. She is the highest-ranked female player in Europe and is considered the continent’s only hoped in the sport. Born in the Republic of Moldova, Sofia is also the light bearer for young table tennis players in her country. She comes from a family of ping pong enthusiasts, hence her early career debut. She started playing at the age of six but officially became an international player at 14.
This article takes a closer look at Sofia Polcanova’s career, profile, equipment, and world ranking. Keep reading to discover the young champion’s achievements and what she hopes to achieve in the future.
Sofia Polcanova is a Moldovan-Austrian table tennis player.
Sofia Polcanova was born on 3rd September 1994. According to Wikipedia Trusted Source Sofia Polcanova Wikipedia All the basic information about this popular information. en.wikipedia.org , she comes from Chisinau in Moldova. She started playing at the tender age of six. Her early interest in ping pong was not by chance, as her father was a coach. She told ITTF news Trusted Source Sofia Polcanova Supports Young Talents in Moldova ITTF Foundation Born in the Moldovan capital Chisinau, the now Austrian player shares with us the challenges she had faced as a young player. ittffoundation.org that playing came naturally to her, and she enjoyed the game a lot in the beginning. As she got older and the training progressed, she found the game less exciting as she was doing drills all the time and got bored of the repetitions. Nonetheless, she continued with her training and preparation for a career in ping pong. In 2007 and 2008, she played in the World Championship for Moldova.
Her parents saw her potential and invested a lot financially in her career. At that time, her home country, Moldova, lacked professional ping-pong training facilities. For this reason, Sofia moved to Austria at the age of 14 in the year 2008 to become an international Ping Pong player. She has since played for Linz AG Froschberg and got her citizenship in 2010. She once said in an interview that leaving home to go to another country to access the best training facilities was difficult, and she would never wish that on anyone. One of her biggest dreams is to build an academy in her home country and equip it with experienced coaches for great training sessions, so no one would have to leave home to become a ping pong star.
She competed at the 2016 Summer Olympics in the women’s singles event. In 2021, she competed in the 2020 Olympics.
Sofia Polcanov has had massive achievements since her career debuted. After relocating to Austria and getting her citizenship, Sofia waited for two years to participate in her first European championship in Herning, Denmark, in 2012. In August 2015, she was eligible to play in the World Championships. The 2016 team tournament in Malaysia was her first world championship for Austria.
Sofia worked hard and managed to reach the top 100 world rankings for the first time in 2014. In the same year, she qualified for the semi-finals of the world tour singles tournament at the German Open in Magdeburg for the first time. At the European team championships in Lisbon, she got a silver medal with the Austrian team. Germany defeated them in the finals.
In 2015, Sofia won the first doubles event at the Hungarian open with her partner, Amelia Sola. The win got her first world tour title. She qualified for the semi-finals two more times in the doubles, making a name for herself.
In 2016, Polcanova succeeded in the Hamstatd tournament in Sweden and got a ticket to the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics. She lost to Australia’s Lay Jian Fang in the 1/32 finals. In the team segment, she and her teammates, Li Qiangbing and Liu Jia made it to the quarterfinals, where they lost to Japan. The Croatia 2017 open was a vital success for her as she qualified for the finals.
In 2018, Sofia finished third at the European championships.
According to Table Tennis Reference, Sofia Polcanova ranks 18th in the world, and her equipment is; an Innerforce ZLC racket, Tenergy 05 rubber (forehand), and Tenergy 05 (backhand).
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Sofia Polcanova has bagged a couple of medals;
| Year | Tournament | Medal |
| 2014
2018
2022 |
European Team Table Tennis Championships
Liebherr ITTF European Championships
European Championships |
Silver
Bronze-Women’s singles Silver -Women’s doubles Gold- Women’s singles
Gold-Women’ doubles Bronze- Mixed doubles |
Sofia Polcanova is on Instagram and Facebook as Sofia Polcanova.
Sofia Polcanova is an exceptional, young Austrian ping-pong talent. She started her Ping Pong career when young and has done well to build a name for herself with medals from various championships. Ranking 18th in the entire world is no joke. The table tennis champion has participated in Olympics twice, the Rio 2016 Summer Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Sofia Polcnova is passionate about helping children and adults achieve their table tennis dreams. She had an idea of supporting young Moldovan players and has managed to raise enough finances to refurbish a training hall in her home country. She wishes to build an academy with good training sessions and experienced coaches, so no one has to leave home to become a professional table tennis player like she did.
