Article by Daniel Grigore – Published Friday, 08 May 2026, 22:31 / Updated Friday, 08 May 2026 22:32
Bernadette Szocs (31 years old, 26th place in the world) has a great merit in the result obtained today by the Romanian women's table tennis team, 3-1 with France in the World Cup quarterfinals by teams, winning two matches for our national team.
The Romanian representative secured her first team medal after a 26-year wait. Tonight, in the quarter against France, Bernadette Szocs won two matches, the other point being awarded by Andreea Dragoman.
On Saturday, the Romanian team will face China, but regardless of the result, the medal is assured, because both losers from the semifinals climb together on the last step of the podium.
After the end of the match, Berni Szocs could not hide his excitement. She smiled widely during the entire interview, which began and ended with thanks to the Romanians in the hall and the other spectators who supported her and her colleagues Adina Diaconu, Andreea Dragoman, Eliza Samara and Elena Zaharia.
Bernadette Szocs, after Romania qualified for the semi-finals of the World Championship: “Dream come true”
“Thank you to everyone who is here to support us. I have no words to describe the feeling I have because we have reached the semi-finals, it is our first world team medal.
I am very proud of my team, we did a great collective job. I am very happy to be here and to have brought two points to my team. I took each ball, each match step by step, and tried to enjoy it as much as possible. In the end we won, that's the most important thing,” said Bernadette in the first phase.
Asked what this first medal means after more than a quarter of a century of waiting, our player answered:
“Phew. It's a dream come true, finally, because we've been wanting a world medal for a long time. We were good colleagues, we helped each other every step of the way and I think that, after a long wait, we deserve this medal”.
She also looked to the semi-final with the best team in the worldChina, looking confident of a “big surprise”:
“We will give our best, we will try everything. We will not give up even if we face China. We have already won a few matches against the Chinese players. We will take it step by step and I think maybe we will make a big surprise“.
“Thank you very much to everyone who came to support us. Thank you, I love you!”, the Romanian said in conclusion.
