CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1971:
Summer Tournaments—Part II (Brathwaite Beats Haslam To Win Central American
Open; Haslam Wins U.S. Empire State Open).
Though Richard Farrell has come to the July 17-18 $600 Great Lakes Open in Rochester after winning what I’d called the Philadelphia Summer Open (actually, as Mal Anderson correctly pointed out, it was the Quaker City Open), he’s unseeded and unplaced. Consequently, after he’s had 5-game trouble in his opener with Canadian Junior Paul Klevinas, he’s forced to meet in the 2nd round none other than Errol Resek, one of the favorites to win the tournament. (D-J Lee had entered but didn’t show, perhaps because…his car had been stolen?). Errol has put new rubber on his racket and is hoping to break it in gradually. (As if wife Jairie disapproves, she says to someone, “He has other rackets he could use.” To which Errol replies, “That’s not true.”) He begins breaking in the racket by going up 2-0, after winning the 2nd at 19, but when he loses the 3rd at 19 that gives Farrell confidence. Now Richard with steady, up-to-the-table backhand counters starts forcing Errol back. Perhaps Errol thinks that if he chops—like Fuarnado Roberts?—Farrell won’t be able to handle the spin. But Errol, who does not chop like Robbie, is for the remainder of the match at the mercy of Rich’s wind-up forehands.
As the wide-open quarter’s gets under way, I’ve had my eyes open a bit—ah, what you don’t know about people you’ve associated with for years. Alex Shiroky, I learn, was born in Mainland China, has a Russian name, and is not now (and maybe never was) a citizen of any country. But, as in previous matches he’d easily beaten Dixon and Boggan, he sure has an identity on court and looks indefatigably strong. Earlier, while relaxing at the swimming pool of the Rochester Ridge Road Holiday Inn (“Wow!” says my little Eric. Did you see that! He swam under the whole length!”), Alex said he’d been practicing nightly at Reisman’s club, had been running daily (“I run backwards too,” he says smiling—“it’s supposed to help my coordination”), and so is right now at the top of his game. But Farrell, drifting easily a giant step or two back, grabs Alex’s hop-like-a-rabbit loops and tosses them back, and the mustachioed Shiroky, outsteadied, goes down, 18 in the 4th.
Next up for Farrell: Bernie Bukiet (“How much I get I win?”). In the quarter’s, Bernie had been behind 19-15 in the 5th to Canada’s Larry Lee, but from his age-old magical depths had six times worked his bag of tricks, then, smiling, took his curtain calls to the roars of the crowd. Against Rich, the dark-browed Bukiet again looks like he might pull forth something from his invisible cape. With games 1-1 and the score 19-all in the 3rd, Farrell serves straight topspin and Bernie (who’d come back from being 18-14 down) puts his return into the net—and flings his racket there too! But then he deuces it up and pulls out the game after all.
At the break, Bernie says, “Farrell plays pure table tennis. No tricks.” He says he can’t win because Rich has no weaknesses—can hit from either side. In the 4th, once Rich sets up a forehand, no matter if Bernie gets it back, there comes another and another, until Bernie is way back, and Farrell, now with both feet off the floor, is swatting it past all defense. Still, Bernie remains stubborn. Though he sees his power failing, he can yet seize one advantage. Farrell, up 18-16, serves and calls a let. Bernie does not break concentration. He makes a good return to Farrell’s outstretched hand and claims the point. In a moment it’s 19-all. But Farrell, who’s been cheered on by his father (father-figure?) doesn’t falter. And as Rich positions himself to bang in successive forehand winners, Bernie, like a doomed man, like Merlin and his wand imprisoned in a tree, can only stand and wait the end.
Coming out to play his quarter’s against Roberts is George Brathwaite. You could see from the professional way George arrived for his matches, the manner in which he carried himself, the repeated deliberateness of his service position, the ritual jogging between points, his high seriousness. The Chief, one senses, would be ready to give an exhibition anywhere in the world—at the Rome Hilton, say, where, I’d read recently, the Italians had installed table tennis tables because it was their idea that all Americans now were just crazy about ping-pong.
Of course George, rolling, and Robbie, returning off his anti-topspin, got into an expedite match. Whereupon no one seemed to know for sure whether you were to count the time one used to wipe his glasses, or towel the sweat off his brow, or slowly walk to retrieve a ball, or tie his shoes, or say a silent prayer, or God knows what. No one had a stopwatch and so, over Roberts’ protests (though it was he who wanted the expedite rule in, wasn’t it?), the time would be judged, the rule brought in, via 15 minutes on the wall clock—and Errol Resek, having nothing else to do, was brought in as timekeeper. With the result that The Chief would advance in 4 to the semi’s—there to 3-zip do away with Mitch Sealtiel who’d earlier barely survived Peter Stephens, 19 in the 5th.
O.K.: the finals. “He’s a dancer,” says a guy next to me. “Yeah, look at him dance,” says another—the two of them sounding like characters out of that famous Hemingway story “The Killers.” They were speaking of George of course, for whether he was chasing a ball, or sending Farrell off after one, he’s continually jogging. However, The Chief’s play was not up to standard—not until he was down 2-0 and 10-4 in the 3rd. Then he began a comeback that brought him into the 5th. Though Farrell, refusing ever to drop the ball, would drive George 20-25 feet back, George would so aggressively counter that he’d be able to dance in to the choreography of a follow through and force Rich back and away and out of the point. But then in the 5th, Brathwaite, down 10-1 at the turn, was surely a goner. And though he made the long professional climb to 15-18, it was too late. Farrell has just too much reach on him.
In the Women’s final, ex-Barbadian Pat Hildebrand, who’d just won the Philadelphia Quaker City Open over ex-Vietnamese Xuan Ferguson, defeated her again—in 5 after protesting that Xuan “was putting her service hand with the ball under the table and then bringing it out and throwing the ball back so fast that Pat couldn’t see it to her satisfaction.” The somewhat confused umpire, trying to go by the unavailable book, was as politic as possible. Then, with the games 2-all, Pat explained sweetly that she had to go to the ladies room. “What do you do now?” asked the bewildered umpire, well aware that technically there is a rest period after the 3rd but not the 5th game. My advice was to let her go—else be faced with having exacted the severest penalty.
Other winners: Men’s Doubles (after Farrell/Sealtiel had been left out of the Draw that had already begun, and a lengthy discussion as to what to do about it): Resek/Brathwaite in 5 over Bukiet/Larry Lee who’d been match-point down to Shiroky/Boggan. Mixed Doubles (insisted upon by Hildebrand): Resek/Hildebrand over Boggan/Ferguson who’d gone 5 with Bill Hodge/Darline McCann. Under 17’s: Paul Klevinas over Mike Baber in the semi’s and Timmy House in the final. Class A: Peter Stephens over Farrell in the semi’s and Shiroky in the final. Class A Doubles: Stephens/Dave Philip over Farrell/Hodge. Perhaps after Stephens/Philip win the Men’s Doubles in N.J. from Roberts/Sealtiel, they’ll be persona non grata in future A events?
Brathwaite followed up his play in Rochester by going off to play in the extended Aug. 5-17 4th Central American Open, held at the beautiful National Arena in Kingston, Jamaica. The unsigned write-up, perhaps written by George (TTT, Sept.-Oct., 1971, 11), described The Chief’s daily regimen while in Kingston: “jog two miles every morning, exercise, practice for one hour in the afternoons, and play elimination matches at night.”
“The climax to his efforts came on Aug. 12 when in the singles event he faced the giant Jamaican, Orville [Les] Haslam, who, currently living in London, is ranked #7 in England.” Reportedly, Haslam had not lost a match in Jamaica since 1967—and 5,000 spectators didn’t want him to this evening. Brathwaite, as was not unexpected, dropped the 1st game. But George “remembered the discussion he had with the English coach at the World Championships—in which it was made clear to him that any good steady player should beat Haslam.” So, if he remained patient and didn’t rush his shots…why, yes, angling in balls, he could, and did, take the next two games—George observing “that once he got a three or four point lead, Haslam became automatically a defensive-minded player rather than the vicious attacking player he is when he is in the lead.
“Finish him off now!”... “Finish him off now!” That’s what the pro-Haslam spectators began shouting. And, acting on that cue, Les took the 4th at 14. But then in big trouble in the 5th, what was he to do? Down 19-17, and his supporters up out of their seats, Haslam, while back-to-back “engaging in two long rallies, suddenly, without warning, unleashed two tremendous forehand kills which sent the American sprawling! Score: 19-all!”
More screams: “Kill him!”…“Kill Him!” George, keeping his cool, “decided that a Bengtsson serve, short backhand sidespin, might work,” so “he served straight into Orville’s big forehand…[and] Haslam put it into the net.” Another opportunity to serve brought another thought. “Hoping to outsmart his man, he made ready for the same serve. Only this time he swung deep to the backhand and…Orville popped it up and George killed to the middle! Point, game, and match to Brathwaite!”
Well-deserved applause. But George was not yet the Champion. Soon, though—for the final against Trinidad’s Winston Mulligan was but a 3-game formality. The Chief also won both Doubles. He paired with Canada’s Errol Caetano, who perhaps like George has dual citizenship in Guyana, to take the Men’s from Haslam and Fuarnado Roberts, loser in the Singles to Trinidad semifinalist Mansingh Amarsingh.* And he paired with Denise Osman to take the Mixed from Haslam/Monica DeSouza. Perhaps this hat trick, along with the “Ping-Pong Diplomacy” trip that’s given George renown will win for him the coveted “Sportsman of the Year” in his native Guyana?
Haslam Wins Empire State
The Empire State Open, held Aug. 21-22 at Farmingdale, N.Y., was something far more than a warm-up for the Sept. 2-5 Canadian National’s—it was a trial run, an opportunity for learning, for it was being directed by the same Long Island TTA executives, headed by President Dave Cox, who’d be responsible for putting on our own U.S. National’s at Hempstead, Long Island’s Hofstra University next year.
In the absence of D-J Lee (he’d been invited, but I’d heard he’d met with an accident and that, under the circumstances, it was not advisable for him to play), Orville “Les” Haslam, having come, at the generous invitation of the LITTA, direct from the Central American Open in Kingston, was the Men’s winner. (And speaking of generosity, it may interest readers to know that John Ebert, whom we’ve seen as one of the Pan-Am winners in the Wheelchair Games in Kingston, was telling me how Haslam, an iconic sports figure in Jamaica, shagged balls for the wheelchair players hour after hour, day and night, for two whole days.
Haslam, with his strong physique and handsome face, brought a game to the Long Island players and spectators that was new and exciting. His stance when receiving is something Colossus of Rhodes-like—except that he rocks back and forth on his very outstretched left foot, while with the heel of his right it’s as if he’s digging a marble-hole. I might also mention that a number of spectators were interested not in comparing whether Haslam was a better player than Brathwaite but whether he had better legs. The Chief, however, would not be with us long. George had let it be known in Topics that he’d lost to Bukiet here because he was just “exhausted” after his play in Kingston. This of course did not sit well with Bernie, and he’d respond with a Letter to the Editor in which he’d say, “Good players do not make excuses when they lose to another good player.”
Against early opponent Jim Dixon, it appeared that Haslam, having lost the 1st game 26-24, then just squeaking out the 2nd at 19, was in danger of losing the match. Mort Zakarin writes (TTT, Sept-Oct., 1971, 29) of how Dixon “was all over the court, hitting backhands and forehands just as hard as he could,” how he “kept Haslam on the defense, roaming far behind the table, vainly trying to keep the ball in play with loop shots that went twenty and thirty feet in the air.” With the crowd “screaming and applauding” his every point, Jim was up 15-10 in the 3rd. Then he served off. “As Haslam turned to retrieve the ball,” Mort said he saw a smile on Les’s face—and knew Dixon wasn’t gonna be the winner. Indeed, Haslam went on to take that game at 19, the 4th at 16.
Next man up for Les, and beaten quickly, was Mitch Sealtiel who’d been runner-up to Fuarnado Roberts in the N.J. Summer Open. Then, in the semi’s, it was Resek’s turn. “You only write about me when I lose,” complains Errol. Well, what can I say struck me about his earlier straight-game match with Peter Stephens? Only that it drove a disgusted Peter out of the Doubles and away from the tournament. Oh, alright….Errol, I’ve got to say, has one very distinctive shot: he comes smoothly, shoulder-down, into a forehand put away like Trevino lining a drive or Palmer pinching a six-iron. No one else in the States quite hits a shot like it.
Down 2 games to 1 against Haslam, Errol rallied in the 4th to draw close at 19-20. But the Jamaican cracked an incredible counter from far back to end it all. “If I win that 4th game I win the match,” says Errol. But then he adds, “I didn’t feel comfortable out there against him. He has lots of spin. If you don’t have good timing, you miss the ball.”
Over to the other side of the Draw now, to Lim Ming Chui, the lefty penholder who uses the wooden side of his racket. His opponent in the semi’s is the inimitable Bukiet—attired in a sleeveless, yellow-colored undershirt and bright red pants. Never mind—Chui plays as if color-blind. Down 19-20 in the 1st, Bernie gets a high ball to hit in, misses it. Lim Ming rounds the table and takes up his towel, doubtless to wipe his face and compose himself. Bernie comes over, snatches it out of his hands and throws it over the barrier. What the…! Turns out it’s Bernie’s towel Ming is using. It’s one thing to beat Bernie a game, another to rub it in?
When Bernie loses the 2nd game at 19 you can tell from the look of him that he needs a lot more than one of those hundreds of “Smile” buttons Danny Ganz has made up for the tournament. “Chui play very fast with the wood, you understand?” says Bernie later. “If I catch someone who plays without tricks I get to the final. I have a very good chance against this fellow Haslam.”
In the 3rd, Bukiet is down 12-6, and, well, it’s all over….Isn’t it? No, not quite. Lord, what a hold Bernie has on life! He keeps reminding me of someone who ought to work in one of those survival schools—you know, where they tell you how to stay alive in a desert, a snow crevasse, a locked basement room with a homicidal maniac. He wins 12 straight points. Fantastic!
But then Chui, shaking his head irritably—as if, out in the hall between matches playing bridge with Sol Schiff, Benny Hull, and Bob Kaminsky, he’d unaccountably again missed a makable slam and for a moment forgotten where he was—starts to get hold of himself. Suddenly the line of play is clear. And he begins cracking rapid-fire shots left and right, like (snap, snap, snap) a declarer taking in sure tricks. So, no, it’s not in the cards for Bernie always to come from behind. Age-old amazing he is, but also human.
Perhaps too human. After this emotionally exhausting loss, Bernie decides, rather spontaneously, opportunistically I think, to accompany someone to the local diner (named, of all things, “Bernie’s”). This, however, did not sit well with Dave Cox, the Tournament Chairman. Had it not been made clear to Bernie as well as to the 200 or so spectators that the Men’s Doubles final—between Resek/Bukiet and Brathwaite-Haslam—was about to begin?
Cox already has had much too trying a weekend. He’d been particularly put out that several seeded and placed players, whose entry he had accepted without entry fees, hadn’t showed—indeed, hadn’t had the courtesy to tell him they weren’t coming. Tannehill was one of these players. He had gone from waiting to play with the Swedish team in the little town of Kranfors, Sweden—first they’d let him play with their bus driver, then the weakest member of the Women’s Team, then once with their #4 Bernhardt, whom John beat—to waiting in Jamaica for the expense money he was to receive for showing up there and losing twice to Roberts.
Though Dave knew the crowd wanted to see Bernie’s Doubles match, he was mad enough to announce over the loudspeaker, “Mr. Bukiet has five minutes to report. Otherwise he will be defaulted.”
Sally, my wife, jumped into our car and drove off to “Bernie’s” to get him. I made soothing words, tried some conversation—like the March Hare with the Mad Hatter. Cox’s co-workers, Mitch Silbert and Chris Schlotterhausen, and Rulesmen Cyril Lederman and Mal Anderson are consulted. Says one, “Has anyone else been give this liberty?…Well, if he needs a lesson….”
Fifteen minutes later, outside the un-air-conditioned gym, where there’s cool campus grass, Cox is shaking an adder’s finger at a very apologetic Bukiet (“I’m sorry, Cox, very sorry. I didn’t know…”).
“A fine example you set for the junior players,” says Dave—that’s a line I remember. And he goes on. “You know I’ve run a nice tournament up to now, and now you’ve kept this crowd that has looked forward to this match waiting 25 minutes, and now, very likely, they’re all hot and irritable and ready to go home….” And so on, because Cox has worked hard and is naturally disappointed that all things can’t go as he’d like them to.
But as for the crowd, when Bernie comes into the gym, all is forgiven, forgotten. The spectators whistle and yell their approval—it may be, their love. And it’s a good 4-game match—though, poor Bernie, on losing, has got to put up with Errol’s smiling, “All you do is block. How are we going to win if you just do that?”
I have more things to say about my friend Director Cox and the pressure he’s felt this weekend, as well as some observations on Reisman—hey, if Marlens, can write reams on Marty, I can write a little. But first, the winners of the remaining events:
Women’s: Alice Green deuce in the 5th over Xuan Ferguson in the quarter’s, and 20, -15, 9, 18 in the final over Pat Hildebrand who’d downed Olga Soltesz 17 in the 4th. Women’s Doubles: Kaminsky/Ferguson over Soltesz/Lisa Yoon. Mixed Doubles: Haslam/Hildebrand over Bukiet/Barbara Kaminsky in 4. Men’s A’s: Marcy Monasterial in 5 over Jim Dixon who (after being 2-0 down and at deuce in the 3rd) had escaped Dave Philip 26-24 in the 5th. Somebody said, “Monasterial won’t tell anybody what kind of crazy rubber he’s got on his racket.” But so far as I’m concerned it’s not what he carries in that hand of his that wins for him—it’s what he holds in his heart. Women’s A’s: Muriel Stern over Marguerite Burnett who’d ousted Ferguson. A Doubles: Rory Brassington/Ed Smolen over Jim Dixon/Ray Mack in 5. B’s: Joe Ching over Richard Chen. Consolation: Ernst Willer over Bill Steinroeder. Wheelchair: Tyler Kaus over Dave Vincent. (Ty was right to chastise me in a Letter to the Editor for not including this event in the Results—it was a memorable moment for him, his first tournament win ever.)
Esquire’s: George Rocker over Manny Moskowitz 19 in the 3rd in the semi’s and Marv Shaffer in the final. Senior’s: Hal Green over Monasterial. Senior Doubles: Mitch Silbert/Tim Boggan over Sol Schiff/Moskowitz. Under 17’s: Rick Rumble over Mike Stern. 15’s: Rumble over Bruce Plotnick. 13’s: Stern, winner of a $25 check for “Most Promising Junior,” over Carl Danner who’d stopped Scott Boggan, 19 in the 3rd. Fred Danner, in his autobiographical Ping-Pong Diplomat, a Work-in-Progress he’s letting me read, says that Carl was ecstatic over this win, for it meant Fred was going to take him for the first time to the Toronto CNE tournament. He also says by rooting for Scott I was trying “to disturb Carl.” I categorically deny this, categorically deny I ever focused on trying to disturb any opponent of my sons throughout their careers. That was beneath me. However, regardless of what people thought, I was going to cheer. The focus of my cheering was always positively on Scott and Eric, never on their opponent. And, indeed, I can’t recall even one instance when someone (other than Scott or Eric) asked me to stop cheering for them.
The two most exciting matches of the tournament for me (aside from my own deuce in the 4th match with Bernie) were in the 8th’s when Chui played 5 games with Reisman and Miles went into the 5th and then defaulted to Rory Brassington. As luck—or, rather, as the Tournament Director—would have it, both were played simultaneously.
In fact, one almost wasn’t played at all. Reisman was directed to barriered-off court #2. He got out there, looked up at the ceiling, went round to the other side of the table, began tap-tap-tapping the ball nervously on his racket, looked back up at the ceiling, hit a couple of balls with Chui, and came off the court. “I can’t play on this table,” he says. “There are shadows here. I don’t play unless I have perfect conditions.”
Cox is called for. He is very busy. What? Reisman won’t play! He sees Marty standing there, looks at him as if her were mad. “There is nothing we can do about the air-conditioning—it’s just gone off. People will have to stay hot.”
“No, no, it’s not that, Dave,” I say. “I know you’re preoccupied, but it’s just that Marty can’t see well enough on table #2. Can’t he play on #1 after Miles gets finished?”
Slowly Cox understands. Something happens in his eyes. He strides to the microphone. “Mr. Reisman has exactly two minutes to begin play. Otherwise he will be defaulted.”
Something wild happens in Reisman’s eyes. He immediately goes up into the stands and sits down. A spectator next to him is grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
Cox is reasoned with, cajoled, flattered, appealed to. He throws up his hands in exasperation, in despair. His tournament’s already behind schedule. Privately a USTTA E.C. member is heard to say, “If they’re so far behind now, I’d hate to think what the National’s will be like.” But Cox and crew, despite the large number of entries in many events, know very well what they’re doing. The Saturday night party at a marvelous lodge up in the woods will be delayed an hour or two (which doubtless deters a good many people who would have enjoyed a Danny Ganz steak and a drink or two from coming), and the matches will right themselves.
As Reisman, sitting in the stands, is scheduled to play, and Cox, still watched by the grinning cat, is studying his watch, I hear someone suggest if it might not be possible for somebody to go up into the rafters to see about the lights. Another asks, “Why can’t they play the next match scheduled on #1 on #2 now, and then play Reisman’s match scheduled on #2 on #1?” Miles is appealed to. No, he doesn’t want to trade courts. He, smiling, agrees with Reisman. Marty is right. The lighting is unquestionably better here. Court #1—that’s where he, Miles, belongs. That’s where he’s going to stay.
Both Cox and Reisman know that the crowd very much wants Reisman to play. Dave knows that the spectators feel they get their money’s worth when Marty plays (and every non-player was being charged $.75 to get in, even the wives of the players). Cox recognizes Marty’s class, his charisma—knows he is, rightfully, a legendary player. And Reisman is quite aware of the questions Bill Marlens has repeatedly posed to him, “Does not a star owe his public the pleasure of his talents? Can he legitimately say, ‘Everyone comes to me. I come to no one?’”
The Gordian knot of the impasse is this. That Reisman is proudly holding out for being a professional among amateurs. He wishes to settle for nothing less than the ideal—it’s a matter of principle, of spirit, of soul with him. Or, if it isn’t, he’d like it to be. Reisman is Reisman. He, his unique persona, and lifelong artistry are not to be duplicated by the masses. In a sense, Marty is really in the ivory tower of the dreamer-artist, playing match after match in the beautifying mirror of the mind. Cox, when in a certain mind-set, is not for giving anyone—national champions, legendary figures included—any special privileges. This too is an ideal, an abstract, but one which puts less emphasis, less importance, on the individual. Of course you can argue that each and every individual is as important as the next, but to my mind this is just not demonstrably true. Humans need heroes and heroines, as they do gods and goddesses. It’s this necessary element of a responsive spirit in man or woman, of soul, that I’ve often found lacking in American table tennis officialdom.
Reisman and Cox—it’s the perennial conflict between the individual in authority vs. the individual not in authority. It is, on the one hand, Cox’s time-scheduled tournaments, carefully planned (though already disrupted by people having to be called several times for their matches—where are their time cards that took so long to make up?) and also carefully constructed so that each match can be allotted its predictable mathematical sameness, a pattern of completeness that is necessary to any Director’s aesthetically satisfying tournament. And it is, on the other hand, Reisman’s unpredictable sense of attention-getting drama. With his playful, cat-like playing of long five-game 1st round, 2nd round, 3rd round matches, he’s been the bane over the years of anyone trying to time-schedule him.
Yet, as we’ve seen, though it’s gone against his grain, Cox could have defaulted Bukiet, but didn’t. Perhaps it’s because Dave’s so adamant here with Reisman that he later tries to strike a balance by being lenient with Bernie? Or was it that he didn’t want to be embarrassed by having to cancel a final match? Or was it that he genuinely didn’t want to disappoint the spectators? Or was it that he had a secret sympathy with the aging Bernie who after all has given his life to the Game, some perhaps hidden reverence deep down somewhere that Dave was almost unaware of? Or was it that because it was obvious I cared so much that Bernie not be defaulted, and out of friendship with me that he waited those extra minutes for him to show? Or was it that it was better in the long run, more aesthetically satisfying, to complete that Doubles final late than not complete it at all?
Who knows? Probably not even Cox himself. Reason is not the be-all and end-all—there are truths it can’t get at with certainty.
At any event, Dave’s two minutes are up and…Wait a minute! Marty’s getting up. He’s been surrounded by people urging him to play. Yes, he is going to play! He walks back into the court, and announces very loudly, “I’m playing this match under protest.”
Shadows there may be for Reisman, but for the first two games he completely dominates the table. Occasionally Chui turns over his racket, uses the dreaded wooden side. Reisman, however, couldn’t care less. It works absolutely no effect on him.
Repeatedly Ming can do no more than go through the motions. It’s as if he’s paralyzed. Finally, in the 3rd game, he begins to play a little. And now it’s apparent that there’s something missing in Reisman too—competitive concentration. (When was the last time he played in a tournament? And, after all, the first two games have been so easy.)
One way or another he and Chui get to deuce. As they’re playing the 20-all point, a ball from an adjacent table hops the barrier and comes bouncing into Reisman’s view. “Let!” says Marty and stops play. Ming does not like this call—though, rules aside, it is an unquestionably ethical one; the ball has carried right into the side of their table. A word or two is spoken—Marty’s bottom line is, “We’ve always called lets around here when a ball comes into the court.” The umpire, who is not Cyril Lederman, or, for that matter, anyone on that gentleman’s official Umpire’s List, agrees that, yes, it was a let.
This no-point, as it turns out, is very much a turning point in the match. From now on, it all somehow goes sour for Reisman. He begins making errors, and now Chui, once he’s got the idea he can win a game, two games, the match, from this no longer casually magical figure, more psychic force than man, he who was dominant is no longer so.
Perhaps, consciously, or unconsciously, Marty might have been psychically disturbed by his instinctive urge to prevent the point from being taken from him. He, who proud, was above stooping, had stooped a little. A quarter of a century ago, Marty might have been two games down and at deuce in the 3rd, and, with a smile, given the ad point to his opponent—and then of course won the match. It was precisely this proud bull-fighter-flirting-with-death bravado that had so engaged and thrilled the audience, and, more importantly, fed Reisman’s over-the-years increasingly mighty ego, or spirit.
What a falling off, then, this “We’ve always called lets around here….” It made Reisman mortal rather than immortal. And so the psychological ambiance, the romance, the fairy tale spell that Reisman and Chui were caught up in dissolved. Chui, faced with a 40-year-old man, and one considerably out of practice at that, was suddenly no longer paralyzed and went on to win the match in 5.
Ah, would that the Reisman of old come again and live to do his heroics. But could it ever happen?
And Miles, what of him against Brassington?
For a week before the tournament, Rory would call our house. “I’m sorry to wake you,” he said to my wife one morning. (“You should be,” she said to him.) “I wanted to catch Tim before he left for work. [Unbeknown to Rory I’d been leaving the house at 5: 15.] I wanted to know if he’s found out yet what kind of ball they’re using in the tournament.” Naturally Rory couldn’t practice with any other kind of ball.
Brassington is really up for his match with Miles, and Dick, well, he’d gone 5 games with Kaminsky in the 1st round, and one wonders as his career is coming to an end just how much he can care about any match. Although Dick wins the 1st game at 9, he can’t hit consistently through Rory’s stiff chop—and loses the 2nd and 3rd games at 19. After they’ve played for an hour and go into the 5th, Dick of course is defensive-minded, but Rory, surprise, has taken to line-drive looping and has been remarkably steady. In fact, he’s never played better in his life—the points mount up for him one after another.
I’ve been cheering hard for Miles, as I was also for Reisman, but now Dick says, Leave me alone, will you. Tim?”
Finally, down 16-6, Miles stops play, says to Brassington, “I think I’m going to quit….Yes, I’m quitting.” He looks very pale and is feeling dizzy. He goes outside alone to get some air.
“What do you want to root for the ‘old men’ for?” Peter Stephens says to me.
What could I tell him? That, like Reisman and Miles, I, too, was an “old man” in my forties? That I played and watched and wrote about the Game, and the people in it, as best I could, conscious of some absurd dream, some perhaps more absurd reality?
SELECTED NOTES.
*Mulligan and Amarsingh, from Trinidad, are obviously good Ping-Pong players. Don Gunn must wonder if they know that “the soprano steel drum, used by the steel bands of Trinidad, is called Ping Pong.” He also must wonder if they drink a “Ping Pong” cocktail (lemon juice, egg white, sloe gin, and Crème de Yvette).