CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
1973: Sarajevo: Singles/Doubles.
At Sarajevo I personally didn’t report on the Singles and Doubles matches for Topics, but, with the considerable input of Shazzi Felstein, who covered the Women’s Singles and Doubles (TTT, May-June, 1973, 33-36), and with helpful comments from Dell Sweeris’s Analyst’s Report (TTT, May-June, 1973, 38-39), I’ll make the best summary of these Individual Results I can. Both Shazzi and Dell of course watched these matches from a player’s perspective, for each won the Press Competition Singles the tournament organizers offered.
Women’s Singles
As our U.S. women finished their Corbillon Cup play 18th out of a field of 40, they weren’t expected to advance very far in the Individual events—and they didn’t. Yet all of them played to their level and so had nothing to be ashamed of. Sue Hildebrandt fell in the 1st Preliminary Round to Belgian defender Marie France Germiat. Reporter Felstein didn’t think serious-minded Sue’s attack severe enough, but was impressed that, though she couldn’t finish off points, she persevered to come from behind and almost win. Said Shazzi, “In the fifth she [Sue] was way behind but kept her head to rally to 18-all. Then, down 20-18, in this her first World’s, she kept her poise again and deuced it. Only to lose 23-21.
In her 1st Preliminary Round, Angelita Rosal, on finding backhand openings that would set up her forehand smashes, downed another Belgian, Lea Van Heybeeck, 3-0. Then, however, she drew Blanka Silhanova, a Czech looper who forced her into fast-exchange, forehand counter-driving play—which apparently was alright with Angie. In fact, in the early and mid-game 5th it appeared that Rosal would win, for she was up 9-2...11-4. But then, said reporter Felstein, “the Czech girl came on so strongly that she outscored Angie 17-4.” Too bad, added Shazzi, it “would have been a marvelous win.”
Judy Bochenski advanced through three Prelim’s to reach the (128-player) 1st Round proper. Canadian Flora Nesukaitis was her first victim. Shazzi pointed out that after “Judy killed everything” the first two games, “Flora appeared very dispirited,” and complained that “her push was going too high.” In the 3rd, Flora’s defense stiffened, but then, just as she might have been given new life, she couldn’t quite take the 3rd, though she’d been up 20-18. Next, Bochenski had only a little 18, 19, 12 trouble with Switzerland’s Vreni Lehmann. And then, after being down 2-1, outlasted the Netherlands’ Ellen Klatt. In the 1st Round, Judy lost to England’s National Junior Miss Champ Linda Howard in 5—a terrific hit and counter-hit match that Shazzi thought “Judy deserved to win.” Though the girls split total points exactly, Howard came out on top, 12, -14, 21, -19, 19—winning the pivotal 3rd, and ending the tight match with an edge ball.
Patty Cash drew a Bye, then in her 2nd Pre-lim allowed France’s Yveline Lecler only an average of 11 points per game. Nor in her 3rd Pre-lim was Patty threatened—scored an easy 3-1 victory over Austria’s #3, Eva Bogner. Now, though, in the 1st Round, Patty had to play the 1969 World Women’s Doubles Co-Champion, Zoya Rudnova. “Patty’s hard-rubber block and flat hit” did not much bother the Soviet star, though Shazzi said that Rudnova’s “jerky movements” against Patty suggested that, “although she was winning the match handily, she wasn’t enjoying it.”
Ah, Shazzi concluded, if only our girls “were geographically located to take advantage of strong competition. We need a bridge into the future. We need someone imaginative who can engineer our players’ largest hopes.” That means we need foreign help?
Shazzi emphasizes three 2nd Round matches. South Korean attacker Park Mi Ra was fortunate to get by English defender Jill Hammersley (later Jill Shirley, still later Jill Parker). After losing the first two games, Hammersley had rallied and, as Shazzi points out, “was well ahead in the 5th. Then she became too tight. The last few points, the very crucial ones, she tried to hit in with her backhand, and missed completely.” Shazzi says she later overheard Jill confide to a friend “that the balls she’d tried to smash were set-ups—it was just that her hand was too shaky. So she went down, deuce in the 5th.”
Against Scandinavian Open Champ Lee Ailesa, mainstay of South Korea’s winning Corbillon Cup Team, Birgitta Radberg played, as Shazzi says, “a long drafty match (they were assigned a table by one of the doors leading into the hall [and didn’t protest?].” This was another of those matches that showed just how streaky play could be. From “9-all in the 5th, the Korean made a few bad shots, then surprisingly fell apart. Radberg went on to win the game 21-10.” Despite this collapse, Lee, after play here in Sarajevo, would be ranked World #2.
Radberg’s Swedish teammate Lena Anderson, whom Shazzi thought had “good serves” (“Don’t ask me what kind. I have to play against her to know”), was beaten by Cheng Huai-ying, the “cute Chinese girl with pig-tails some of you may remember from last year’s Chinese Team’s tour in the U.S.,” in a “good, hard, fast-hitting match.”
Although, looking back, one could see that after 1955 no European woman was ever World Singles Champion, it’s interesting to note that 19 of the last 32 players in this ‘73 World’s Women’s Singles Championship were European (7 were Chinese, 4 Japanese, and 2 South Korean). Half a dozen years into the new millenium, how many native-born Europeans would you find in the Top 32 of the World Rankings? Maybe 4?
Three of the four Europeans who’d beaten our U.S. women made it to the 3rd Round 16th’s. However, only Shilanova, who’d looked to be a loser to Angie, with a contested but straight-game win over the USSR’s Rita Pogosova, was able to advance to the 8th’s. Howard was quickly dispatched by Swedish Champion Radberg. But Rudnova, starting slowly against Park Mi Ra, put up a fight. Shazzi says that the Soviet girl “occasionally turned to Gomozkov, the only Russian sitting there for the beginning of the match, as if for help or reassurance. But all she got was the back of his head—‘cause he was watching other matches.” After Rudnova had lost the first two games, the 2nd at 19 as she was beginning to find her game, and had then, as other Russians came by to watch, won the 3rd at 14, she looked like she might turn the match around. But Shazzi was critical of “how little encouragement” anyone gave her. “Very little clapping or reassurance.” This, Shazzi rightly thought, might have affected the 21-18 4th and final game outcome.
Two of the seven Chinese were stopped in the 16th’s. Chopper Chou Pao-chin, down a game (and 59-58 down a point) going into the 4th, was suddenly (and surprisingly?) overpowered by Japan’s Tomie Edano, also a shakehands player. Yang Chun, a penholder swatting away at Hungary’s Beatrix Kishazi’s predictable chop returns, was up 2-1 and 20-19 match point when—surprise, surprise—Kishazi unexpectedly “smacked in a good backhand” and went on to win that 4th game at deuce, and then the 5th at 19. “Wow,” said Shazzi, really struck by Kishazi’s expertly-timed and fearless departure from the given—the “exception” that proved the “rule” of years of successful defensive play.
Another Chinese, though moving ahead, experienced a difficult, deuce-in-the-4th time with Kishazi’s tall, husky teammate, Judit Magos, a penhold attacker. Ditto, 19-in-the-4th, for South Korean Chung Hyun Sook’s advance over Yugoslav’s Resler.
In the round of 16 East vs. West matches, USSR’s Elmira Antonian upset China’s Cheng Min-chih, who’d been the runner-up at Nagoya. Shazzi, who’d watched this match from a distance, said that it “looked like a push-pick game at first, then more like the Russian was hitting and the Chinese chopping.” Whatever the strategy, by whomever, the Chinese lost, whisper-close—19 in the 5th.
China’s Lin Mei-chen, after winning the 1st, went down docilely to Radberg.
China offset these loses some with Hu Yu-lan’s straight-game defeat of Romania’s feisty Maria Alexandru, a tenacious, not always lady-like defender.
Europeans lost two of the remaining three Czechs—Hana Riedlova was crushed by the Korean Chung, and Silhanova was beaten in 4 by China’s Chang Li, many years later Zhang Li, the U.S. National Women’s Coach.
But Czech Open Champ Alicia Grofova rose from the dead against Hungary’s Top 12 winner, defender Kishazi. After losing the 1st, Grofova had been up 16-9...only to eventually drop this game, as if mortally stricken, at 17. Surely she was finished. But, no, rallying, she won the 3rd. And then, Shazzi tells us, “At 19-all in the 4th Grofova hit in three very good, hard shots in succession to win the point” and from there prevailed.
In East vs. East matches, one Japanese came through, one didn’t. Yukie Ohzeki, who, in 1974, in the first big wave of foreign players to enter our U.S. Open would win the Women’s Championship, snipped the pig-tails off China’s Cheng Huai-ying, 19 in the 4th. But Tomie Edano was outhit and, down 20-19 in the deciding 3rd, outnetted, by the Korean Park.
One European chance for the semi’s slipped away when Radberg, up 2-1 on Hu in a match that was often a pushing duel, couldn’t survive the advent of the Expedite Rule in the late stages of the 4th. “In the 5th,” Shazzi tells us, “Hu, hitting in some magnificent shots on her service, is up 10-7 at the turn. Radberg gets tight, begins making more mistakes as she sees her chances slipping away and can only get one more point.”
Europe, however, was still assured of a semifinalist. But who? Antonian and Grofova began by playing a tense 1st game. “Antonian’s loop gave Grofova some trouble,” said Shazzi—“sometimes the Czech girl blocked it back too high and the Russian killed it. Antonian hit well, both forehands and backhands, off the push. Grofova was hitting too—but not as much.” When Grofova won this 1st game at 19 it must have given her confidence, for, as Shazzi says, she “began hitting more, especially a hard forehand down the line”—and, with Antonian’s game in tatters, the match turned into an 8, 11 rout.
Japan’s last chance to regain the title she’d almost taken for granted from the mid-50’s all through the ‘60’s was thwarted when Ohzeki was beaten in a 19 in the 4th swingfest by Park.
Park’s teammate Chung looked as if she might come through after she took the first two games from Hu. “The Chinese penholder played a nice steady topspin to the Korean girl’s backhand chop,” said Shazzi. “Sometimes—when she was in trouble—the Korean hit. At 20-all in the 2nd, she socked a backhand in for one point, a forehand in for another.” But when she lost the 3rd at 18, she could no longer challenge.
The semi’s between Grofova and Park had to have been much anticipated, for no Korean had ever been in a Woman’s final. In winning 19, 18, -19, 14, Shazzi said, “Grofova hit more this match”—in fact, seemed to turn into a hitter. For the first time in at least 20 years then, Czechoslovakia, once a great power in the Sport, had a Singles finalist.
Grofova’s certain opponent was a Chinese. Who, certainly, the Chinese had decided would win was best known only to themselves. Shazzi’s description of this Hu Yu-lan/Chang Li semi’s suggests uncertainty. “The pattern was this: serve, push a few, then pick one (forehand or backhand) or get into an exchange. Both players’ styles varied somewhat from their previous play. Chang Li, the penholder, had used a forehand topspin to beat the Korean Chung Hyun Sook—but in this match she didn’t use that shot at all. Hu Yu-lan, the shakehands player, had beaten Radberg by pushing, chopping, and only occasionally hitting—then she hadn’t been interested in exchanging. (She’d also earlier used a forehand roll to beat Alexandru—now in this match she didn’t use it at all.) Now she did a lot of exchanging. Up 2-1 and 20-18 in the 4th, she served off. Shows it can happen to anybody, huh? But then she got her next serve up and over, and Chang returned it into the net.” If this was a coded ending, you read it.
At the last World’s in Nagoya, in the quarter’s of the Singles, Grofova had faced China superstar Cheng Min-chih (‘71 Women’s and Mixed Doubles Champion and Singles runner-up). Then the Czech had been decidedly checked—had managed a 3-game total of only 32 points. A sign, you say, of Grofova’s chances in ‘73? Correct. But given her improvement in getting to the final (and a draw that enabled her to avoid the Chinese), this time she scored 42 points.
So, World Championship to Hu Yu-lan. And Czechoslovakia would have to wait...and wait...and wait before any of her players would have such an opportunity again.
Women’s/Mixed Doubles
In the absence of Lin Hui-ching, Cheng Min-chih could not defend her Women’s Doubles title, but another Chinese pair—Chou Pao-chin and Lin Mei-chun—came to the forefront, defeating, first, Lee and Park, deuce in the 4th in the quarter’s (our Judy and Patty, playing well, had earlier forced these Koreans into a 23-21 game), then downing European defensive stars Kishazi and Hammersley, 19 in the 5th in the semi’s. From the other side came former World Women’s Doubles Champion Maria Alexandru, who’d won 12 years earlier with a Rumanian teammate, but was paired here with a Japanese, Miho Hamada, who’d not made the last 32 in the Singles. In both the quarter’s and the semi’s, against non-Chinese teams, they’d won comfortably in the 4th. I thought that, since Kishazi and Hammersley, in that half of the draw with the strong Chinese, had knocked out Chang Li and Cheng Huai-ying in the quarter’s and were playing Chou and Lin down to the wire in the 5th, China might allow them the chance to win the title. Instead, the Chinese chose to fold against the Alexandru-Hamada pair in what had to be an 11, 18, 14 debacle of a final.
Interestingly, too, in the Mixed, Li Li, who didn’t make the last 32 in Singles, and who wouldn’t be ranked in the Top 30 in the world, teamed with Liang Ko-liang, whose stature had fallen with that tie-turning Team loss to Sweden’s Ingemar Wikstrom, to win the title. Was there an all-Chinese final? That had depended on...in this case, the Soviet’s Anatoly Strokatov and Astra Gedraitite. In the round of 16 they’d gotten by one formidable Chinese pair, Defending Champions Chang Shih-lin and Cheng Min-chih, 18 in the 5th, and in the semi’s they’d defeated Yu Chang-chun and Cheng Huai-ying -15, 14, 20, 12. Perhaps then it was too much to ask of Strokatov (World #30) and Gedraitite (World #22) that they’d beat the third Chinese pair—and they lost 19 in the 4th.
Men’s Singles
Just as our women didn’t embarrass themselves in Singles play, neither did our men—they, too, performed at their level. But had we made the First Division, they might have had the confidence to pull out some matches they lost. In the 2nd Preliminary Round, in which they were all still competing, Peter Pradit, who’d earlier had -19, 19, 15, 16 problems with the Netherlands’ #2, Bert Schoofs, succumbed to Australia’s Paul Pinkewich in 5, after being up 1-0 and at deuce in the 2nd. And Fuarnado Roberts was beaten, 19 in the 4th, by Schoofs’ teammate, Nico Von Slobbe, the Netherlands #4. However, Danny Seemiller advanced with a 2-1 win over the Swiss Markus Frutschi. And Bernie Bukiet, who quite likely was the oldest player in the competition, belied his 54-year-old legs by continuing to advance without losing a game.
In the 3rd Preliminary Round, in a match on another day he might have won three straight, Danny saw his momentum 14, -22, -23, -13 abruptly stopped by Yugoslavia’s #7, Milorad Zivanovic. And Bernie’s hopes too were quashed, 18 in the 4th, by Australia’s Stephen Knapp. As for our Champion, D-J Lee, who’d been drawn into the 128-entry proper, he lost, 3-zip as expected, to Jacques Secretin, the French #1. Although all our men were eligible for the Consolation event, D-J begged off with a sore ankle, and of the others only Danny played—and reached the 4th Round before losing, 2-0, to Yugoslav defender Bela Mesaros.
Even after the contending players had reached the round of 32, 14 of the 16 matches went but 3 games—none more strikingly lost than (perhaps Pavel, the Yugoslav psychologist, discouraged, had left the Team?) Milivoj Karakasevic’s 4, 12, 7 collapse vs. Japan’s 1967 runner-up Mitsuru Kohno.
Although Europeans comprised 3/4 of the 16th’s field, a number of Europe’s fine players either obviously underperformed after advancing to that 3rd round or, worse, were upset in the 1st or 2nd round. So, in fairness to Karakasevic and the Czech Jaroslav Kunz (who averaged only 11 points against Japan’s Yujiro Imano), and to such very strong players as Stellan Bengtsson, Istvan Jonyer, Tibor Klampar, and Eberhard Scholer—as well as Chinese giants Hsu Shao-fa, Li Ching-kuang, and Tiao Wen-yuan—it might be well to note U.S. Analyst Dell Sweeris’s thoughts on how “the grueling team event” had to affect the singles performance of some of the key players.
The matches in the Team’s, Dell pointed out, “were all so close because of the new system where you only play the teams you are close to.” That is, whatever the Division, the 14 teams in it were grouped according to contiguous rankings, divided into two round robins, and, after the six ties were completed, played two more crossover ties for final positioning. “There were more 5-4 and 5-3 ties in this World’s than any I have seen and when you are involved in a key, close match you do not hold back your game to save energy for the Singles.”
Dell suggested that perhaps it’d be better if, after the Team’s, Doubles play would precede Singles. He noted that Sweden’s Kjell Johansson, unlike some other good players, received an extra bye in the draw which, since he’d lost some unexpected matches in the Team’s (to the Indonesian Utomo, for example), might have helped him recover his strength and allow him to become better focused. Perhaps Dell was right, for though “The Hammer” advanced to the round of 16, he didn’t always hit the nail on the head in his 19, 12, 20 match with the Korean Choi. As for Johansson’s teammate Bengtsson, he looked shaky from the beginning—barely beat the current German National Champion, blocker Wilfried Lieck
The only two matches in the round of 32 that went four games involved Chinese players. Scandinavian Open runner-up Yu-Yi-tse wasted a 21-8 game against Japan’s Kuze, for, though Yu outscored his opponent in total points, 76-73, he lost -20, -20, -15. And Hsi En-ting gave up the 1st game before allowing Hungary’s Beleznai only 35 points in the last 3. Incidentally, Sweeris didn’t think much of Beleznai’s more celebrated teammates, Jonyer and Klampar, and the spectacular sidespin loops they’d brought to the ‘71 World’s. Their discus-thrower motion had to be executed from a set position and a deep one, and Dell felt that any return would demand—what was often not forthcoming—a “smooth recovery and follow-up.”
Survivors into the round of 16 included 10 Europeans, 3 Chinese, and 3 Japanese (though not Nobuhiko Hasegawa, whose spin game from deep court Sweeris thought no longer so effective, nor Norio Takashima who’d suffered a back injury in the team tie against Sweden).
Three-game winners in these 8th’s were:
Hsi over Gomozkov (23-21 in the 2nd)—after the Russian had done the giant-killing job of knocking out Defending World Champion Bengtsson whom Dell had said “was clearly the best player” at these Championships.
Borzsei, easily, over Imano.
Surbek, who’d dropped a game to Canada’s Errol Caetano, over Kuze (22-20 in the 3rd). Of course some were saying that the draw had been “fixed” in his favor.
Stipancic over Li Fu-jung (19, 14, 21), whom Sweeris said now “had a sheet of inverted (to use in serving) on his unused side of the paddle.” Dell felt that at least one new serve the Chinese were promoting really didn’t work very well. They “tossed the ball about four feet in the air and as it came down they would flutter their hand right then left and then forward and the serve would speed fast and deep to their opponents.” The “good” players, Dell said, “were so caught up in the motion that they forgot to watch the ball.” But the “great” players “seemed to have little trouble in following the spin, relaxing and forcefully returning the serves.”
Since Li Fu-jung had a formidable weapon in his own forehand attack against the penhold attacks of Korea’s Hong Chong Hyon and Japan’s Tokio Tasaka, it was a shock to Sweeris that against Stipancic’s two-sided spin game Li couldn’t aggressively take the offense with any accuracy and so was reduced to mainly blocking.
The last Russian, Sarkhayan, zipped away the last Englishman, Neale—but not before Denis with his pips and placements had rubbed out Hasegawa and Hungary’s Gabor Gergely.
There were two four-game 8th’s matches:
Secretin defeat Liang Ko-liang (proving that those who’d lobbied for the legitimacy of the Frenchman’s win over Liang in the Team’s were justified?).
Johansson -18, 16, 20, 16 stopped 1971 Consolation Champion Istvan Korpa, who’d earlier taken out ‘69 runner-up Scholer.
And in the one 5-game match that saw the last of the once powerful Japanese, Milan Orlowski, finalist to Bengtsson in the Czech Open, rallied from 2-1 down to dramatically (21-6) finish off Kohno. Sweeris was understandably impressed with this Czech’s advance and his 15-4 record in the Team event.
However, though Sweeris said Orlowski had often demonstrated “the ability to play off spin and the quickness to counter the power of his opponent,” in the quarter’s, in losing in 4 to the tactically adept Hsi En-ting, he showed “a slight inability to play a forceful game without using the lead of his opponent.”
Dell projected, if not reservations about Johansson’s game, an awareness that what was once so electric about his play had been modified—said he “was not anything like the colorful ‘hammer’ of the late 1960’s. There were not nearly so many kill shots from ten feet back. He was not spinning from the barriers with great range.” But his quarter’s play was strong enough to get him by the smooth-looking Sarkhayan in 5.
The case had been made that, after the locals had seen the play of Surbek and Stipancic, the Sport would become more popular in Sarajevo. Whether this was true or not, Top 12 finalist Surbek, in overpowering Secretin 3-0, and Stipancic, in spinning down Hungary’s surprising (antispin player?) Janos Borzsei in 4, were certainly doing their part—as were the drawmakers after Yugoslavia’s poor performance in the Team’s.
In the semi’s, however, the home-country heroes met their hard-fought end. One heard whispers, then whistles. Two very disappointing matches for most of the spectators. Hsi 19, 19, -12, -20, 19 spoiled a stirring comeback by Stipancic, and Johansson, anchored now at the table, was able to contain the tiger in Surbek, 20, -16, 13, -13, 16.
The final, won by Hsi, 18, -13, -13, 19, 18, was a study in ball control by both players. Sweeris wondered why, since Hsi “used his backhand well in returning spin and placement,” and therefore never felt the need to be in any way “desperate” with his forehand, he played penholder. Why, said Dell, had Hsi gone through “the aggravation of learning the unnatural execution of a penhold backhand when the superior penhold forehand is not used?”
However, Sweeris did approve of Johansson’s new-made modifications to his earlier flamboyant “hammer” style. Now, said Dell, Kjell “straight-counters the ball with both forehand and backhand from about one to five feet from the table. His backhand is now very consistent and effective and no longer needs to be compensated for with his forehand. Everything now looks controlled and sure instead of flashy and a bit unsure.” Still, errors are inevitable. Up 2-1 against Hsi, but down 20-19, Johansson (unsure?) pushed his serve return into the net. That was very costly because although the end-game in the 5th too could have been won by either player, it was Hsi whom Chance repeatedly favored.
Men’s Doubles
Three of the four Chinese doubles teams advanced to the quarter’s—though Hsi En-ting/Wang Wen-hua, having taken heart in earlier battling their way by our D-J Lee/Peter Pradit duo in 5, lapsed a little more, for in winning -16, -11, 19, 20, 8 gave Kohno/Tasaka, the only Japanese team in the last 16, every opportunity to stay alive. You might also say that in the quarter’s this Chinese pair, succeeding in losing this time, were 15, -16, 16, -7, -13, overly generous to Surbek/Stipancic.
The other two Chinese teams also lost in the quarter’s, setting up a sure European winner. Bengtsson/Johansson 21, -18, 19, 22 were strikingly tested by an apparently invigorated Liang and his partner, Yu Chang-chun, who’d been no threat at all in the singles. And Jonyer on getting Klampar out of those up and down elevators he was reported to have so much enjoyed riding in, and steering him out to court as if for a fun stop on a floor with an overview, masterminded their stay long enough to win three 23-21 games from Tiao/Yu.
And just as Karakasevic/Korpa hadn’t quite been able to rise to the occasion, losing in the 5th, after being down 2-0, to Secretin and J.D. Constant—the French team the Swedes wouldn’t afterwards allow 40 points to—so Surbek/Stipancic, to the dismay of their Sarajevo supporters, fell to Hungary’s Defending Champions, Jonyer/Klampar, 14, -20, -19, -21.
After Johansson’s unlucky end-game singles loss, it must have been difficult for him to immediately go out for the Doubles final. But it was really no surprise that he could support Bengtsson in a 5-game win, for he’d been the holder of this Championship with Hans Alser in ‘67 and ‘69, and he was of course a professional player. How professional U.S. audiences would soon be able to see for themselves—for in 1974, in Oklahoma City, and again in 1975, in Houston, he would win back-to-back U.S. Opens.
Our U.S. Teams of course did not win any Championships in Sarajevo, but their more than limited success brings this volume to an encouraging close. A very satisfying World’s it was. Our players, our supporters, were inspired to bring our country forward. From World #28 our men had moved to World #17—only one place from the Championship Division. Who could not help but think, but feel, there was a future for us in the Game. The Swedes in their Bordtennis gave the most powerful of ’73 World’s summaries in the briefest of phrases:
“Best country: China
Most deteriorated country: Japan
Most technical player: Sarkhojan (Russia):
Best serves: Hsu Shao-fa (China)
Public favorites: Yugoslavia
Most heard country: USA”
And heard, too, in Topics (Sept.-Oct., 1972, 5) this poem, “Sarajevo,” by Ivo Andric.
“The steep slopes around Sarajevo are even today full
of Moslem graveyards with the so-called ‘nichan’ white tombstones.
Like white armies in constant march or like everlasting snow avalanches,
these graveyards are forever descending down the declivities.
In the course of years and centuries
these armies have become more rare and the snow avalanches thinner.
For the graveyards have their death too.
Many a white, formerly perpendicular tombstone has fallen
or become inclined as if getting ready to lie down
in the grave together with its deceased.
In some graveyards, as in the nicest one at Alifakovac,
the dense, slender nishan-tombstones are bent over
like entangled white stalks of corn.
These graveyards have something about them not only picturesque,
but also poetically exciting in their origin and their disappearance,
in their contrast with the new life
pulsating and seething in the town below.
There is nothing repugnant or frightening in them
but only something quieting and pure and dignified
which is simply an expression of the reasonable and heroic human
attitude towards death by those who rest there in peace…
The poetry of these graveyards will find its poets,
but they will not be poets of death but poets of life.”
I relate to this poem. Have myself on many an occasion visited the “graveyards” of players—and will continue to do so, believing that their life-affirming years of devotion to the Sport must be remembered.*
SELECTED NOTES
*Conscious of my own sometime-approaching leave, I herewith hope to preserve, as if I feared it might otherwise not be, an article I wrote paying homage to the great World Champion Richard Bergmann. It appeared in Topics (Nov.-Dec., 1992, 35), and is called “A Little Late For The Unveiling”:
“In late April of this year [1992], looking (for something that escapes me now) deep into one of my many, it may be, history-preserving boxes of table tennis articles, press-clippings, photos, letters, player-memorabilia of all kinds, I by chance came upon the notice of an Unveiling of a Monument in Memory of 4-time World Men’s Singles Champion Richard Bergmann. The date was May 2, 1971, the cemetery Mt. Ararat, located, according to the map accompanying the Notice, just off Exit 33 of Long Island’s Southern State Parkway…a mere 15 minutes from my home.
I was surprised. I knew of course that, like so many other Europeans, Bergmann had the most promising of careers devastatingly interrupted—after the Cairo, 1939 World’s…until the Wembley, 1948 World’s—and that, from the mid-‘50’s on after his competitive days were over, he had toured not just North America but most of the world giving half-time exhibitions with the Harlem Globetrotters. But for some reason it had never registered with me that this famous Austrian-born, naturalized Briton had been buried in the U.S….and so astonishingly close to the home my family and I had been quite settled into now for almost 30 years.
On hearing stories about Richard (he was always called Richard) from such well-known players as Dick Miles, Marty Reisman, Bernie Bukiet, and Derek Wall, among others, and from having read his obituaries—in the very first of my more than 100 Editor’s issues, and elsewhere—I’d come to believe that he was the archetypal table tennis professional, a man who genuinely believed that Table Tennis was a great sport and that he, unparalleled Champion and Sportsman that he was, personified this greatness more than anyone who ever lived.
‘Richard the Lion-Hearted’ he’d been called. What a competitor!—that was the thought that had impressed me most about him. In ’48, for example, in an early round, down 2-0 and 10-2, then…before the final fight, eyes closed, stretched out on a hard, wooden bench, calmly resting…and, afterwards, increasing ascendancy in the Sport’s record books. How seriously he took himself, how incredibly confident he was.
Gradually—though I was no longer conventionally religious—the idea surfaced: why not pay him, or, rather, his grave, a visit?
The date of the Unveiling had struck me: May 2, 1971. That was, almost to the day, 21 years ago. How exactingly appropriate, I thought—since to all table tennis players 21 was the always the much desired, near mystical number. And had not Bergmann himself entitled his own book, published precisely 21 years earlier, Twenty-One Up?
Destiny (or some unclear, suspect motive of my own?) had begun to weave and preserve for me the strands of an irresistible pattern.
I went so far as to look up the number 21 in J.E. Cirlot’s A Dictionary of Symbols. It was imaginatively easy. Two plus one equals three. Three equals—do you believe it?—a ‘spiritual synthesis.’ Three forms ‘a half circle compromising: birth, zenith, and descent.’ Associated with ‘heaven’ and the ‘Trinity,’ it no doubt appealed to that submerged part of my now more catholic than Catholic consciousness. To me it suggested ‘sufficiency, or the growth of unity within.’ Bergmann: off the table, his own worst enemy, said ITTF founder/president Ivor Montagu; on the table, his inner self profoundly in control, a perfect role model. How different the drives we all have to our end.
May 2, 1992, I started out for Mt. Ararat, the cemetery named after the mountain on which, after the Deluge, Noah’s ark came to rest.
Exit 33 was very easy to spot and immediately on coming off the Parkway to the intersection I saw, on the other side, the cemetery. But, crossing over, momentarily losing my approach-way, and, frustrated (why was I in such a hurry?) making an illegal turn to circle back, I tried entrance after entrance, but they were all locked. Why was the place so deserted? Did no one visit there anymore? Surely that was impossible.
I stopped at Wellwood Memorials, the only place of habitation nearby, where stones for the dead proliferated out in every direction—an unkempt poor substitute for the unavailable neighboring cemetery itself. The man who greeted me inside was very obliging. ‘It’s Saturday, the Sabbath,’ he said, answering my question kindly, with apologetic regret. ‘The cemetery’s open six days a week, but today it’s closed.’
‘Oh, of course,’ I replied. But I hadn’t realized that Mt. Ararat was a Jewish cemetery or that there were days you couldn’t get in. Had it been the same when I was growing up? You didn’t make a visit on a Sunday?
‘I’m looking for Section 14 C,’ I said. ‘When I come back, which gate do I enter?’
For a Long Islander this man was extraordinarily friendly. He insisted I wait until he’d gone back into the interior of his store to bring me a detailed section plan, and then he tried with an X to direct me to the grave. I thanked him and, with some sense of having partly fulfilled a duty, went home.
The number-synthesis (I was no more than whimsically making?) was now broken. And, c’mon, what real interest did I have in going to Bergmann’s grave anyway? Was I ever even introduced to the man? Perhaps. But I’m sure we’d never spoken.
May 2, 1971—I couldn’t resist. I checked it out. Sure enough, it fell on a Sunday. So, tomorrow, May 3, 21 years worth of Sundays, would be fine too. Except that I was entered in a table tennis tournament and certainly wasn’t committed enough to (what?—my new-found New Age interest in Numerology?) to give up playing. I’d go to the grave another time.
Sunday, May 24—21 days hence—how about then?…Nope, I’d be away—another tournament….
As it turned out, I was in no danger of postponing my visit indefinitely. May 25, Memorial Day—certainly such a day of observance had to be age-old-acceptable for my show of homage, my cyclical synthesis (for, after all, in World War II Bergmann had done his bit, had landed in France on D-day).
And this time, around 10:30 on an overcast morning, the Mt. Ararat gates were open to the graves within. But not a soul, or should I say mourner, was anywhere about.
Slowly, trying to familiarize myself with the section plan the Memorial-man had given me, I drove about until, on generally adapting myself to the area, I just stopped the car and got out. Other than myself there were only a couple of landscapers to be seen.
Looking left and right at the tombstones, I followed one of the long, parallel walks that crossed the grassy plots, but stopped abruptly when I came to a stake that said Section 16. Then, doubling back, I noticed the numbered section stones embedded into the ground and found E 14…D14…C14 and then—it was much like the surrounding others, though one of the largest—the monument that read:
BERGMANN
BRYAN NURICK
A stone-etched flame (I thought of Aladdin’s lamp) seemed to want to burn forever on the left side of these names.
Footstones lay before the monument. So, left, right, then the momentary, unsheltering little thrill of discovery. Engraved there, surfaced over by grass-leavings that were easily brushed away, its first line wedged in Hebraic characters indecipherable to me, the stone said:
Richard
Bergmann
Apr.
10, 1918—Apr. 5, 1970
Beloved
Son, Brother, and Uncle
World Table Tennis Champion
I’d brought no flowers; did not take my cap off, did not say a prayer, just stood there, notebook and pen in hand….No more time-limit matches, Richard; no more under-the-table warning-alarms going off….
And the other stones. What did they say?
Alongside Richard, his mother, Sophia Bergmann (Sept. 7, 1891—June 5, 1980). ‘You work hard,’ she’d told him, ‘and some day you will be an engineer and make money.’ She was a grieving 78 when her 51-year-old son died in a London nursing home of a brain tumor…brought on, someone said because in middle-age he’d dyed his hair so black. What a ladies man he was. ‘Richard,’ a table tennis friend on accompanying him to his flat once asked, “why are there no chairs in the room?’…‘So the girls will have to sit on the bed,’ he answered. ‘It’s easier that way.’
No halo for this revered Champion; rather (I liked Montagu’s phrase), ‘the aura of insurrection against authority’ with which Richard sometimes surrounded himself….
And in the family plot: Frieda and Theodore Nurick (‘Maj. U.S. Army—World War II’)—Frieda being, I assumed, one of Richard’s four sisters. And Frank C. Bryan (‘Kind Heart, Gifted Hands, and a Gentle Soul’)—the 8-years- now deceased husband of one of those other sisters….Spaces for the living remained.
What more, pad in hand, was I to silently scribble?…At the end (wrote one of his visitors, Roy Evans, Montagu’s long-time successor, himself succeeded now), Bergmann, in that bed, ‘mute and paralyzed.’ A final suspension.
My god, Tim, don’t be stupid. The roguish Champ, even when hard up, did have a sense of humor. Was it World runner-up Bellak’s line that Reisman so liked? ‘Bergmann was weak on his backhand—but I never saw him miss one.’…
From the right of the monument an outstretched branch of a pine tree shaded the name BERGMANN. A nice touch. I looked down, saw a fallen pine cone, and, picking it up, put it in my pocket. ‘All I want from your China trip,’ said my mother, born before the turn-of-the century, ‘is a piece of dirt at the foot of the Great Wall.’ My sense of history, my sentimentality, what feeling of reverence I have, I owe to her?…
Continuing to linger in front of Bergmann’s footstone, I noticed again on the flat top of the monument a bunch of small stones, and wondered how they got there. There were a few scattered ones on neighboring monuments too. One of the landscapers had come close by and I walked over and asked him about them. ‘The people put them there instead of flowers,’ he said—‘to show they’ve been to the grave and paid their respects.’
I thanked him, but, before leaving the cemetery, walked back to the monument. I couldn’t resist—I began to count the stones. Before I was halfway through I had a wild hope as to what the total would be. And then in the next instant, though I continued counting, I was sure. I counted the total, carefully, three times. There were exactly 21 stones there….But whether this was by accident or design, I couldn’t, and still can’t, say.”