"Never let me slip, 'cause if I slip, then I'm slippin,'" rapped Dr. Dre with perfectly circular reasoning, adding, "But if I got my nina* then you know I'm straight trippin.'" *While Dr. Dre may have been referring to a 9mm pistol in his classic 1992 song, "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang," the "nina" in question could just as easily describe another deadly ballistic weapon, one which debuted almost exactly four years after the song. In 1996, a girl named Nina Mittelham was born in Willich, Germany. She would grow up to be one of the best table tennis players, not only in her homeland (#3), but in Europe (#9) and the whole wide world (#39). The latest venue for her dominion was the women's grand finals event at the summer-long Düsseldorf Masters tournament series. With incumbent women's champion Han Ying unavailable to defend title, the stage was set for the top-seeded Mittelham. First, she had to get past her 14-year-old Annett Kaufmann, the unseeded upstart who had upset France's Marie Migot to reach the semifinals. Mittelham, however, was in no mood to be a chapter in Kaufman's Cinderella story. After winning the first game, Mittelham fell behind 6-10 in game two. Nerves got the better of the teenager, however, as she failed to convert any of her four game points, watching helplessly as Mittelham strung together six straight points to reclaim the momentum en route to a 4-0 sweep. In the finals, Mittelham ran into her compatriot Kristin Lang, a 35-year-old veteran ranked a distant #323 in the world. Mittelham knew better than to enter the match relaxed and overconfident, especially after Lang had upset world #51 Hana Matelova of Czech Republic to reach the final. In the end, however, the regression toward the mean saw the heavily favored Nina Mittelham justify her top seeding with a (11-8, 11-9, 6-11, 11-5, 11-8) win. "At the Masters, I had my first competitions in a long time," said the victorious Mittelham. "But the level was quite okay. Playing against Kristin is always uncomfortable for me anyway, because she is always very stable throughout the match. So I'm a bit surprised that it was so clear today, but I'm very happy about it!" Maybe the "G" in "Nuthin' But A 'G' Thang" actually meant "German" instead of "gangsta"? At any rate, that Nina... she's a pistol.

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