CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
1977: World Women’s/Men’s Singles
It was again apparent from the Singles matches that South Korean emigrant Insook Bhushan was largely responsible for our U.S. Women’s advance into Championship Corbillon Cup play. Both Alice Green Sonne and Angelita Rosal lost in the 1st Qualifying round—Alice 19, -20, 12, 16 to India’s #1 Shailaja Salokhe, and Angie, 10, 16, 9, to the Czech’s little-used Cup player Dana Dubinova. Judy Bochenski, after a satisfying -15, 19, 9, 20 win over Turkey’s Kadriye Poyrazoglu (the Turkish team finished 40th), fell, fighting, in the 3rd Qualifying round, -11, 19, -20, -16 to the Netherlands’ Judy Williams. Neither Angie nor Judy played in the Consolation’s (though I don’t know why not), but Alice did, and in the 1st round almost (19, -21, -16) beat the English #3 Linda Howard.
I myself took the opportunity to play—in the Press Tournament. After beating Menachim Stein, a former Israeli National Champion who was certainly not as serious about the match as I was, I reached the final—where of course I lost to Jaroslav “Jardo” Stanek, the ex-Czech #1 who we’d seen play in the States some years ago.
Of the eight Women’s Singles quarterfinalists, only one was a European—23-year-old Ursula Hirschmuller—who in’77 won the first of her five West German National Championships. “Ursula” means “little she-bear”—which suggests her short physical stature but may pooh-pooh any notion of mere playfulness. Someone told me that all members of the German Team have to sign a contract guaranteeing they’ll be on call at least 100 days of the year. On some of these days players are more apt to find their calling than on others. Hirschmuller began earning her World # 8 ranking by beating the ‘74 European Champ, Hungary’s Judit Magos, -19, 23, 16, 20. Then, in the 3rd round, she knocked out the #2 North Korean, PakYong Ok, deuce in the 5th. And in the 8th’s, she won, deuce in the 5th again, by downing Ilona Uhlikova, the Czech who used to be the fastest counter-driver in Europe. (Married now, she’s slowed down, or else others have gotten faster). But finally, in the quarter’s, Ursula was caught in a bear trap by China’s Chang Te-ying and, averaging only 10 points a game, couldn’t begin to maneuver her way out.
Perhaps Chang was due for a breather. Though that’s what you would have thought she’d started with. In the 1st round, she’d drawn Lee Ki Won, whom the South Koreans hadn’t played in a single match in the Team’s, and apparently had to struggle mightily, 27-25 in the 4th, to wrestle her down.
Meanwhile, Chang’s 2nd-round opponent was being decided. Our Insook Bhushan, former Captain and playing teammate of the formidable South Korean players here, after a 15-0 record was found qualified to meet Claude Bergeret, the French #1. Ms. Bergeret, you might say, had to qualify to play Insook...by passing a surprise Doping Test. And—another surprise—our own Team Captain Heather Angelinetta was called on to accompany Claude to the toilette—to make sure she didn’t switch her urine with anyone.
Down 2-1, Insook was playing too predictably defensively. Heather suggested she try putting a little pressure on Bergeret by picking up her pick-hitting. Which she did—successfully. And now, with her new awareness and confidence that she could vary her game, her chopping got better. Up 17-13 in the 5th, she unexpectedly snapped a backhand in. Up 20-16 she finished with a quick forehand.
“This Bhushan,” said the involved umpire afterwards, as if justice had triumphed, “has the most legal serve of anyone I’ve umpired for.” Bergeret, sobbing, was to have only the one consolation (no, not that biennial, less meaningful event for losers—which she didn’t even enter). She would continue on...to win a World title! The Mixed Doubles with Jacques Secretin via a key (-12, 19, -13, 19, 16) 8th’s match in which they were 96-88 outscored by, but beat, Huang Liang/Wei Li-chieh (both of whom, not incidentally, were, respectively, runner-up in Men’s and Women’s Doubles).
Insook’s next and last match was with Shanghai schoolteacher and in her spare time World #4 Cheng Te-ying. Up 19-15 in the 1st, Insook finished with two beauties—a backhand pick and a deceptive fadeaway forehand. Bobby Gusikoff, former U.S. Team member, sitting with others of us on the U.S. bench (Bobby’d been critical of the tournament’s poor lighting and the non-wooden floor, but appreciative of the many spectators) tried to point out something to Insook, but “No,” she said, “don’t tell me anything. I know what I’m doing. Sometimes I have to hit and miss.”
In the 2nd game, Chang, down 12-4, apparently can’t hit the ball hard enough to get through Bhushan. Perhaps Insook’s chops are coming a little too high and deep? Penholders have a tendency to hit low balls better than high ones. Still, the Chinese girl wins 14 of the next 22 points, rallies to 20-18 before pushing the game-point into the net.
As the 3rd game is about to get underway, Chinese Coach Chang Hsieh-lin is making angry gestures at Chang. Does she need such a reminder to play?
At 16-all in the 3rd, Chang pulls away—is up 19-16. But Insook ties it up. Fearlessly, Chang throws the ball heavenward, serves and follows with a winner...saves the day.
Insook wants to change her playing shirt. She has 5 minutes, so off she goes. “Hey!” someone says. “Is she crazy? Somebody stop her. You can’t go out of the hall—you can’t even leave your team bench!” (Is that true? She couldn’t go to the toilet?) Nobody stops her, and she’s back within the time limit. She forgets her towel though, and in starting the 4th game she and her opponent play the first two points on the wrong side. Up 4-1, Insook’s huffing and puffing (she’d jogged to and from wherever she went to change?). Not an encouraging sign, and one that precipitates a 7-0 run on Chang’s part. Insook loses this game at 14. Maybe the Chinese has just now understood that with her Friendship racket she’s supposed to come into Insook’s chops in a more direct straight line?
In the 5th, Chang opens ominously with a net. But then is soon down 13-5! Insook is going to beat the World #4! In fact, she can win the tournament! True, she’s been shaking her left foot—as if she’s got a cramp, but....But no excuses. Chang goes into a zone—just plays perfectly, has gone 16-15 up! At 16-all Insook flashes in a forehand--but at this precise moment the umpire has to call a let, and in a moment instead of being 17-16 up she’s 17-16 down. Then she fails to return a Chinese throw-up serve. Down 20-18 match-point, she can’t return a carefully angled-off roll. So her great chance is gone. She comes back, takes off her sneakers, and, head, down, preoccupies herself with her blisters.
Lee Ailesa, who’d been the mainstay of the 1973 Corbillon Cup Championship Team that Insook had begrudgingly been the non-playing Captain for, looked, like Insook, to be a winner in the bottom quarter of Cheng’s half of the draw--but wasn’t. After losing the first two games, China’s Chang Li rallied to win. In the very exciting 5th, Lee had her chances. Up 19-17 and serving, she blocked Chang’s return off. Then missed a forehand. At 19-all she served and followed—and missed again. Finally, after surviving two match points, Lee looped one off, then served and followed...with a whiff.
Chang’s quarterfinal opponent was another Asian, the lone remaining Japanese—19-year-old Kayoko Kawahigashi (who in the 2nd Qualifying Round beat someone 5, 3, and 21!). In the 2nd Round proper she got a break when her opponent, England’s Jill Hammersley, who’d recently recovered from an appendectomy, was suffering a recurrent hip pain and was not at full Defending European Champion strength. (Of course many a player continuing day after day to play all these Team and Individual matches on the hard surface courts here at Sparta, er, rather “Sportacus,” as the Championships were named, risked aggravating an injury.)
Before her 5-game match with the chunky Kawahigashi (who would go on to win the 1980 and ‘82 U.S. Opens), Hammersley had received last-minute acupuncture (an “ages old traditional treatment”) from a friendly Chinese Team Doctor. (Even more Anglo-Chinese understanding the Chinese might have shown to Jill...might even have allowed her to win the World’s...had she been up to it—or so someone was trying to tell me.) But though this Chinese treatment (putting black powder on two tender points in her ears and on the injured area) was helpful, it didn’t completely relieve her pain. Said Jill, “The Japanese girl was catching me wide on the forehand and then dropping the ball short, and I had to stamp forward to reach the ball. She knew about the injury and exploited it—but I would have done the same. Anyway, the pain affected my concentration.”
Against Sweden’s Ann-Christin Hellman, European runner-up to Magos in ‘74, Kawaigashi lost the 1st, was down 12-8 in the 2nd, down 14-8 in the 3rd, and down 1-2-3-4 game points in the 4th before winning.
Perhaps then playing Chang Li was an anticlimax? At any rate, the young Japanese averaged only 11 points a game.
So, on the one side of the draw, Chang and Chang’s twin wins in the quarter’s eased them into the semi’s.
In the quarter’s on the other side of the draw, South Korea’s Chung Hyun Sook could manage only 13 points a game from bespectacled Ke Hsin-ai, destined in ‘79 in Pyongyang to be the World Champion. A penholder, Ke played like an all-around shakehands player—at least that’s what our USTTA Rating Chair Neal Fox was telling me. “I’ve experimented with my penhold game like that too,” he said with more than a litttle touch of pride that, for a moment, with originality, with imagination, he’d matched the Chinese. Moving into the semi’s, then, was the 3rd Chinese—Ke Hsin-ai.
One last quarter’s to mention—where perhaps we’ll see the fourth Chinese advance to the semi’s? In her opening match, Sachiko Yokoto, the #1 Japanese, playing with a deceptive black racket (hard rubber? long pips?), met China’s Chen Huai-ying, the 27-year-old veteran of four World Championships, who it was presumed had to be tested once again in the Preliminaries else she couldn’t qualify. She came through. Up 19-17 in the 5th against Yokota, Chen pushed into the net. Up 20-19 match-point, she served into the net. At 20-all, she missed. Down 21-20, she missed. What a way to lose, huh?
In the next round against Hungary’s Beatriz Kishazi, runner-up in the ‘72 European Championship, Yokoto wasn’t so fortunate, this time lost in 5. But then in the 8th’s Kishazi was beaten decisively by China’s Chu Hsiang-yun. Oh, oh, another Chinese quarterfinalist. While there’s still time, someone had better give the encouraging cheer, “Friendship First, Competition Second!”
Ah, just in time—there’s one quarterfinalist yet to be accounted for: North Korea’s Defending Champion Pak Yung Sun. The Chinese are waiting. No need for Pak to worry about the aging Romanian Maria Alexandru, is there? So Maria was World Women’s Doubles Champion back in 1961. Can she play Singles? Uh, she was European Champion in ‘66. But now? Turns out she’s been World Women’s Doubles Champion three times and that two of her Doubles titles have been at the last two World’s, and that at the last European’s she was Singles runner-up. But she can be looped away. So all Pak has to do is get by the 1st round. Can England’s Carole Knight be a problem?
Jill Hammersley, yes—she was match point up on Pak in the Team’s when the North Korean daringly took an all-out smash that went in and allowed her to save the game and the match. But Carole Knight. Who’s she?
Well, in the final of the recent Norwich Union Championship, she’d beaten Hammersley, and here in Birmingham had caused a small sensation in Cup play when, down 19-9 in the 3rd to Romania’s Liana Mihut, she rallied to win, played what she called the “most amazing match” of her career. As if this wasn’t enough, when she lost to Russia’s Elmira Antonian in the Team’s, she promptly stepped on the ball. So she’s tough.
Down 2-1 in games to Pak, Knight, up 20-18 in the 4th, can’t keep the North Korean from deucing it. But at 20-all Carole doesn’t falter, serves and follows for a winner, then goes on to take the game. In the 5th, the turning point comes at 9-all. Knight makes errors and Pak scores with a serve and one. From 14-11 Pak runs it to 20-16 match point. But Carole spins one in. And, for the first time, serves and socks—20-18. Finishes—finishes herself—by whiffing the ball.
Pak—give her credit--is safely through the 1st round...and home. She will now meet four Chinese—and will beat them all three straight. You’ll forgive me if I skip to the final? There she meets Chang Li, the same Chinese who in the Team’s in Singles and Doubles play had been 17-1 (her only loss? to Pak), and the same Chinese she’d beaten in the final of the last World’s.
After losing the 1st game—down 20-15 she seems to just, friendly-like, give Pak the last point—Chang, playing along in the 2nd, suddenly smashes a ball that goes outside the court. Pak chases it, steps over the divider and is about to pick up the ball when Chang, jumping over the barrier, is alongside her, joining her in what can only be the sporting gesture of a real friend. The crowd approves, applauds. The two of them return to the table and play resumes—the North Korean looping, the Chinese blocking. The points harmonize. Down 20-19 Chang serves, and, as if she has nothing to lose or everything to gain, all-out follows. Deuce! And deuce again. How evenly matched they are. Like mirror images these two left-handed attackers. What will decide the outcome of this game, their match? Fate? Pak, up 23-22, gets an irretrievable net. Pak 2--Chang 0.
At 18-all in the 3rd, the umpire takes a point away from the Chinese. Says he can’t see her serve. And though Pak herself expresses disapproval, the catcalls stand. Again, call it what you will—Luck, Fate—the North Korean gets another net. Wins the game, the match, and the title.
So much then for the rose-red myth of Chinese invincibility.
Afterwards, the Press is invited to an interview with the Champion. The facts are these:
The New York “Times” is in error to call her “Mrs.” Pak. She is 20 years old, is definitely not married, has no boyfriend--loves music and books. Her father is a worker in a chemical factory and her mother a kindergarten teacher. She has been playing table tennis since she was 13 and wears the uniform of the commemorative “28” Sports Club.
She felt, said her coach, “reconditioned” after her day or two of rest between the Team (she was 16-9 in Singles and Doubles) and the Individual events.
“Yes,” she herself said, “I felt sorry for the Chinese girl. Her serve was not a fault.” Did it affect the result of the match?” asked a reporter. Ms. Pak’s coach answered, “We can’t deny our opponent received a bad impression.”...Was Ms. Pak surprised to win in 3?...Was Chang Li at her peak?...The questions seemed to come so quickly she could hardly answer them....Which was her hardest match? “From the quarter’s on,” she said, “every match was hard.” Well, maybe not too hard. When Chang Li (Zhang Li) later came to coach in the U.S., she told Mal Anderson that she’d been instructed to lose to Pak. “I know,” said Mal, “I saw the match.”
Men’s
Singles
Well, it couldn’t have worked out any better, eh? One admires the symmetry of it all--the four quarter’s of the Men’s Singles pitted four Asians against four Europeans. And the semi’s—why, in make-up they were just like the Women’s: three Chinese and the one other, not too far away Oriental. And naturally there would not likely be a Chinese Men’s Singles Champion any more than there would likely be a Chinese Women’s Champion. Coach Li Fu-jung had said as much.
In the 1st quarter of the draw, there was of course Istvan Jonyer, the Defending Champion. He’d have to watch out for a ringer though, for someone said that Mexico’s Coach, ‘73 World Champion Hsi En-ting, was letting it be known that Jonyer’s 1st round opponent Li Yu-hsiang was in reality the best of the Chinese players. Which prompted somebody (since British bookmakers were offering odds on the players) to go out and bet 20 pounds on him. But that he was the best did not turn out to be true—for he lost. Still, his -19, 20, -18, -15 loss to Jonyer was close enough, and Jonyer soft enough, to worry those who hoped the Hungarian spinner extraordinaire would stay in the tournament.
Advancing to meet Jonyer came the current French Champion Patrick Birocheau, who was momentarily interrupting Jacques Secretin’s forever reign. Birocheau had started shakily, was at the -20, 21, 20,9 cliff edge with Bulgaria’s Djevat Hassanov, then had to go deuce in the 4th with Sweden’s Ake Liljegren (who’d knocked out Russia’s Bagrat Burnazian, in a 26-24 5th-game thriller).
Birocheau’s relatively easy 4-game win over Jonyer gave the impression that the Hungarian had not yet recovered (1) from his recent Achilles tendon injury, and (2) from that old cartilage injury he’d suffered in the fall of ‘75 in Russia. For a year or so after his knee operation he didn’t compete. And even now, I heard, his knee swells if he plays more than two hours a day.
Another explanation for Birocheau’s upset win was that Jonyer and Klampar, up 20-13 in the 5th, had just blown their Doubles match against (“They suddenly just didn’t miss a ball”) Huang Liang and Lu Yuan-sheng. Or still another thought was that, with the match tied at 1-1, Birocheau, down 18-13 in the 3rd, ran out the game and so further broke Jonyer’s spirit. Anyway, the crowd was very fickle. Jonyer’s “a piece of shit,” said the guy next to me. “He’s the worst player of all time to win the World’s.” Thus, spake the Historian.
Japan’s Mitsuru Kohno, high from his strong performance in the Team’s, moved toward Birocheau by besting England’s Denis Neale, 3-zip. Before the tournament started, Denis, whose favorite hobby is horse-racing and who therefore lists his favorite TV programme as “Grandstand,” had tried to get 1500 pounds for his mates. They had only to wear a certain bookie’s name on their track suits. But the deal fell through.
Shortly thereafter Denis received an official-looking letter from his Coach that said simply, “You have been omitted from the World Championship Team.” No rime or reason to it, protested Neale, who was most annoyed that, after he’d played almost 400 matches for his country over a period of 16 years, his Coach didn’t even know how to spell his name—it was Denis not Dennis. So Neale paid 250 pounds for a lawyer who promptly pressured the English TTA about their lack of consideration, their kangaroo court, and Denis was reinstated—at least, said his Coach, for this his “last World Championships.”
After Kohno had downed Birocheau in 4 to reach the quarter’s, spectators were naturally interested in who he’d face there. Li Chen-Shih, who was to later win the Men’s Doubles with Liang Ke-liang? Nope. Li was upset in the 1st round by Zoran “Zoki” Kosanovic, the #4 Yugoslav. Naturally this brought to mind Li’s dump to the #4 Yugoslav in Calcutta. Up 2-1 against Zoki, Li managed maybe 25 points total in the 4th and 5th games. Someone claimed that what he was doing was illegal. Had the wooden side of his penhold racket painted--not, as the ITTF required, stained.
Kosanovic, however, then lost in 4 (the last three games under 10) to Wilfried Lieck—after which the 1976 and 5-time West German Champion, planted at the table, the better with unerring anticipation to sprout fast-hands blocks in all directions, was ready to play five strung-out games of what someone called “stringball” with ‘71 World Champion Stellan Bengtsson.
Down 14-13 in the 5th, Bengtsson has to suffer, first, a net (15-13), then an edge (16-13). Lieck is so hands-up apologetic that he seems to talk himself right out of the next point. In fact, he now begins to play very badly—so that soon the score is 18-all. Whereupon the umpire stops play and again warns Christer Johansson, Kjell’s brother and the former Swedish National Coach of Bengtsson, who, in his present capacity as German National Coach, has been calling advice to Lieck almost every point.
Lieck himself has, if not the last word, the last gesture. With the score 20-18 Bengtsson, the players play a questionable match point. Did Bengtsson’s ball nick the edge? The umpire says it did not. Bengtsson doesn’t say anything, but looks expectantly at Lieck. Lieck looks down, looks up at Bengtsson, walks over to the side of the table and grimly, silently, points to the edge. He thus wins, if not this match and a chance for the Big Trophy, the Richard Bergmann “Fair Play Award” for, as one fellow put it, “conspicuously good sportsmanship.”
In that top-half of the draw’s companion quarter’s, the U.S.’s world-ranked Danny Seemiller got thrown a curve. Wang Chien-chiang, I’d heard, was in the semi’s of a recent All-China tournament. Now here he was having to qualify, the only one of the Chinese men forced to do so--and, you guessed it, he happened to be drawn in against Seemiller in the 1st round. To make matters worse, according to Mal Anderson, our USTTA/ITTF Rules expert, the Preliminary draws, contrary to ITTF rules, were made available at least a month ahead of time--so that the Chinese, alerted to the fact that their #11 Qualifier would be put in opposite Danny, were prepared.
In the practice hall before the match, Wang reportedly put in a couple of hours’ work playing against an “imaginary Seemiller” who was using anti on one side, inverted on the other, and who was serving as much like Danny as possible. Danny, too, was practicing, and from time to time some interested Chinese would come over and observe him and then go back and talk to Wang for a while.
Sad to say, then, Danny, who’d played so brilliantly in the Team’s, could never get going in this Singles match. No doubt it was something of an anticlimax for him after the U.S.’s great victory. Also, the Chinese handled Danny’s serves without difficulty. Gary Fagan, whose never-say-die spirit had proved so valuable in organizing the Americans to cheer Danny in his darkest moments against Stefano Bosi in our deciding Team tie with Italy, was extremely disappointed in the lack of American support for Danny in this match. The biggest yell finally came when Seemiller was 20-15 match point down—an ironically humorous plea addressed to Wang (“Friendship Match!”).
Also losing early matches—all in Qualifying play—were the other U.S. men. Of these, only Dean Galardi had a (-16, 20, -20, -19) closely contested fight—with the young Czech Jindrich Pansky who by 1983 would be among the World’s Top 30.
The U.S. did have one moment of ecstatic, unreflecting glory—in the Doubles. Danny and brother Ricky, after downing Greek and English teams in 4, blocked down Kuo Yao-hua and his “lowly,” obviously not meant to win partner Kiao Fu-min, 19, 19, 21, and so advanced to the quarter’s—the farthest an American men’s pair had gotten since Dick Miles and Johnny Somael in 1955. “Don’t be scared of them,” Danny kept telling Ricky. “Make them scared of you.” And on coming off the court, Danny could be heard to say, “They were so confused—they kept talking all the time.”
Later, Danny expressed some second thoughts about this win. Kuo really was a very good player—beginning this year he’d be in four consecutive World Singles finals (something only Barna back in the relatively weak competition of the ‘30’s could match). Also, on reflection, Danny’s singles loss didn’t seem so bad. Wang may have been a qualifier, but there was no shame, and shouldn’t have been much disgust, in losing to him. One of the world’s Top 15, Sweden’s Ulf Thorsell, had been Danny’s next door neighbor in this loaded draw, and Wang got by him in 5. Meanwhile, not far down the block, another neighbor was China’s World #30 Lu Yuan-sheng. Leading 2-0, he was upset (but not unsettled?) by Japan’s unheralded Isao Nakandakare, who in turn was beaten 19 in the 4th by Romania’s Teodor “Doru” Gheorghe. Wang then downed Gheorghe, 18 in the 5th. After which, it was Wang’s turn to fall. You can’t say Dragutin Surbek knocked him for a loop though; more that the Yugoslav strongman outpointed him, -19, 20, 20, 17, in four furious games. The pivotal point of the match came when Surbek, down 1-0, won the 2nd at deuce—then, tap-tap-tapping the ball on his racket, popped it up, caught it in his thrown-back mouth, and with a sigh of relief expelled it table-ward.
Advancing into Surbek’s quarter’s was China’s Liang Ke-liang. He’d opened with a vengeance against West Germany’s Peter Stellwag—was up 16-3 in the 1st, 11-0 in the 2nd. Which was damn near unbelievable, for in the Team’s Stellwag had beaten the Czech Milan Orlowski, winner of the Top 12 tournament only a couple of weeks previous. Liang then gave up a game to Japan’s Masahiro Maehara, who earlier had struggled into the 5th with England’s Paul Day. Orlowski was Liang’s next victim. The 1974 Czech European Champion was now in the Army and about to be married. He had very good two-wing control of spin. But when Liang’s pips-out backhand zigzagged crazily at him he was powerless. Liang murdered him, 10, 14, 8.
Atop the other side of the draw, Secretin, whose ball looks so easy to hit, got by England’s Desmond Douglas in 4, largely because, in losing that swing 25-23 2nd game, Des didn’t seem to feel he could win—or that’s what it looked like to the spectators around me.
As the Frenchman went on to exchange games with Huang Liang, a fellow next to me said that because Secretin had been to China and played against the Chinese he was one of the first Europeans to really understand this new spin. And what he said sounded quite plausible to me until, down 14-10 in the 5th, Huang won the next 8 points on the 1st or 2nd ball as Secretin failed to return 1-2-3-4-5 serves!
Naturally Secretin knows that since 1975 the Chinese have been using this bat with three millimeters of pips out on one side, and a thin layer of sponge on the other—which is exactly the reverse of the conventional bat. But this knowledge doesn’t Frenchify because, unless the sides of Huang’s racket are colored differently, Secretin can’t read the spin coming from it. Huang chops and Secretin might as well take French leave, for why continue—he can’t tell if the ball’s got topspin or underspin on it.
Neale, who played against Huang and Lu Yuan-sheng in the Doubles, said, “They could have beaten Des and me three straight under 4. Huang could kill Secretin, but doesn’t want to. Too bad--because then the racket would be banned.”
As for the official ITTF position, hear its Secretary General Tony Brooks: “The bats have been examined and are legal. Bats and types of service were discussed at Congress...and whereas no permanent conclusions were reached it should be remembered that the ITTF is always concerned to ensure the game is a contest between the skills of players and not between equipment.”
Or, as somebody else in the ITTF offhandedly said to me, embarrassed when I read him back his line, “A lot of principles have to be sublimated for expediency and conciliation.”
Coming out to meet Huang in the quarter’s was Hungary’s Gabor Gergely. He’d dropped games to Heinrich Lammers (who’d edged Scotland’s Richard Yule in a marathon 28-26 in the 5th match) and the USSR’s Sarkis Sarkhoyan (who’d romped through Hong Kong’s Chen Scheng-shien after Chen had gotten by Czechoslovakia’s Josef Dvoracek in 5). Sarkhoyan, I want to whisper, choked away every match I saw him play—including his 19 in the 4th loss to Gergely. The Russians—though the players themselves probably got along well enough with one another—seemed to have the worst morale of any Championship Category team in Birmingham. If coach and player weren’t squabbling, or wanting to, they were all sitting there on their bench looking glumly paralyzed.
Taking a first step—more a crawl than a step—toward Gergely was West Germany’s Peter Engel with a 5-game win over Spain’s David Sanchez. Engel was then stopped in 5 by Milivoj Karakasevic. But in the 16th’s the Yugoslav lost the 1st game at 19 to Johansson and then collapsed. Gergely, however, won a big 19 game from the Swede that saved the match for him. Kjell countered well with his backhand, but too often he just didn’t seem to find or create enough of his old forehand openings. Will he really retire from 60,000 pounds a year?
In the section of the draw I’ve not yet talked about, the Chinese lost one of their men. Wang Chun (who in the Team’s had beaten Orlowski) refused to come out to the table against an Israeli player. (China doesn’t recognize Israel as a country.) Prior to this an Australian had gone off to make a legal bet on the Sportacus grounds—20 pounds on Wang to win. After the Chinese defaulted, the Aussie went back, wanted to switch his bet. Yeah, sure.
The odds on Anton “Tova” Stipancic, the Yugoslav runner-up at the last World’s, were probably pretty high? He didn’t look too impressive—but he did win two 19 games that gave him the necessary lackadaisical lift by Tokio Tasaka in 5. However, if Klampar wasn’t threatened in the 4th by the tenacious Czech Jaroslav Kunz, neither would he be by Stipancic. Indeed, the temperamental Hungarian seemed to be warming up—that, or the New York doctor (no, it’s not Dr. Gal) the Hungarians have picked up has made his bad left shoulder better.
Joining Klampar in the quarter’s was China’s Kuo Yao-hua. Somebody said he’d done 20 laps around this huge National Exhibition Centre and, like a ballet dancer, wasn’t even winded. Others had seen him, using his tilted-in body as a marker for his service drop, practicing hundreds of throw-up serves. Sometimes he (or Huang or Li or Liang or how many more?) would “illegally spin the ball” as he threw it up—like Schiff and his fingerspin,” someone from long ago said. Which, since Schiff’s fingerspin was legal, perhaps makes the comment suspect? In successive straight-game wins, Kuo said goodbye to Sweden’s Roger Lagerfeldt (5-game 1st-round victor over South Korea’s Choi Sung Kuk), West Germany’s Jochen Leiss, and Japan’s Norio Takashima.
Ready then for the quarter’s? They offered some of the best matches of the tournament.
Bengtsson wins the 1st game from Kohno at deuce because his backhand counter is stronger. But then the Japanese, keeping Bengtsson back from the table until he can pass him with backhand or forehand, evens the match. In the 3rd game, at 19-all, Kohno serves into the net. But now the Swede whiffs one and it’s deuce. And after Bengtsson loops Kohno’s serve off, it’s deuce again. And deuce again. And when Kohno powers in a gorgeous backhand, deuce again. Finally it’s “STELL-an!...STELL-an!”
Bengtsson 2--Kohno 1. “And yet,” says a nearby spectator, “when you look at this match you wonder how Kohno can lose it.”
In the 4th, Kohno slows down—and what can Bengtsson do? He hasn’t any spin. In fact, what does he have? A little bit of everything. But not enough to win the 4th. In the deciding 5th, Bengtsson goes from 6-4 up to 10-6 down—then draws close again before pushing two of Kohno’s serves into the net, and falls behind 14-10. Someone draws me a little diagram. Kohno, it’s pointed out, hits properly—the ball goes up first, then comes down. Whereas Bengtsson hits improperly—the ball just goes down.
Up 18-14, Kohno serves off. And, as if shaken, sees Bengtsson tie it up at 18-all. Then 19-18 Kohno. Then 20-18 Kohno on maybe the best point of the tournament—ending when Bengtsson, trying for an impossible retrieve, jumps over the barrier into Surbek’s court. Then 20-19 when Kohno doesn’t return the Swede’s serve. But he doesn’t miss the next one, and wins the game...and the title. Says one observer, “If Bengtsson had won that match, he’d be World Champion again.”
Against Surbek, who’s talking about retiring this year to play for a German club, Liang Ko-liang himself almost retires early. But then, from two games down, he rallies to beat the World #5 Yugoslav and remain the only undefeated player in the tournament. (“Why, asks Li Fu-jung on looking over Neal Fox’s World Rankings, “are the Chinese so high?”)
So, so far, the one Japanese and two Chinese remain.
Some say, faced with the Chinese, the Europeans are giving up, getting tired—are old before their time. But that night, or rather early morning, in a bar, Surbek, who’s talked about going to the Bundesliga, takes a half-drunken vow. “From this moment on,” he says, “I start preparing for the next World Championship.”
Huang against Gergely, as in the Team’s, was a joke. How Huang (or any of the other Chinese) can keep switching his racket and yet preserve his either-side touch is amazing. Gergely, down 6-1, 12-3, slapping the ball away in frustration, returning serves into the net, is so ridiculous that half the aficionados around me are laughing hysterically.
In the remaining quarter’s, it’s understood, isn’t it, that Kuo has to beat Klampar? For, since surely Huang Liang and his infuriating racket have to be stopped short of a scutinized World final, wouldn’t it be better that Kuo do the dirty work rather than Klampar? Moreover, if Klampar should beat Kohno, can the Chinese rush to applaud him?
Kuo, too, has a few tricks up his sleeve. On one early point against Klampar he pushes the ball. It hits the top of the net and crawls over--then, as if it were alive, it bounces...and spins, clambers back over the net to Kuo’s side. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Klampar of course is not bad. Though not everybody may know it, he’s the best player in Hungary. He has more speed in his forehand loop, more snap in his backhand, than Jonyer. And often against Kuo his shots are going in. After losing the first two games, he wins the next two with 11, 15 ease. Is this match a friendly or competitive one? Maybe the Chinese themselves haven’t yet made up their mind, don’t want to be thought too predictable? Much depends on Klampar—how he plays in the clutch, whether he deserves to win? IF, as so many think, Kuo has the game and the confidence to allow the match to get perilously close, how end-game intimidating is that to Klampar? At 17-all in the 5th, the Chinese catches Klampar with a high-up serve and follow, then runs it to 20-17. But the Hungarian, who always—even now—looks bored, holds 18, 19 firm...until with a whiff his chance for the World Championship vanishes into thin air.
In the one semi’s, Kuo won’t let Huang hit a ball. All is 17, 15, 15 as predicted.
In the other semi’s, Liang, down 20-17 in the 1st against Kohno’s sharp hitting and nice little touch blocks, makes it to 19 before pushing his Japanese opponent’s serve off. And now, after beating Kohno convincingly in the Team’s, Liang can only score 14 and 11 in the remaining games. Maybe he got the World Championship jitters? Maybe he developed a hitch in his flawless, fluid strokes?
Now for the final: Japan vs. China—er, rather Kohno vs. Kuo. The New York “Times” says that Kohno, semifinalist at the last World’s, is “making his first appearance in the tournament in ten years.” About the last Asian-African-Latin American Invitational in Mexico City, though, they say nothing—though of course that was where Kuo beat Kohno 19 in the 4th.
In the 1st game, Kohno, up 12-6, hits in a shot, a beauty, and Li Fu-yung claps. Then Kuo hits one in, a beauty, and Li claps again. In a moment the Chinese is up 16-14, has outscored the Japanese 10-2, and goes on to win the game when Kohno, serve and one fast turning sour, doesn’t even give him a chance to play out a point.
In the 2nd, the umpire warns Kuo about his high-up serve, later faults him. He’s putting impermissable spin on the ball? Whatever he’s doing, a Chinese on the back-up bench applauds...applauds presumably the umpire’s wariness. Behind me, a friend is yelling to someone, “I’ll bet you $10 if it gets to be 18-17, or close like that, Kuo will serve into the net.” The fellow in the distance hears him, but, though he keeps insisting that the Chinese wouldn’t dump, he won’t take the 3-1 odds on Kohno my friend’s ready to give him.
In the 3rd, with the match tied at 1-1, Kuo, down 18-17, serves into the net. And, since such a point makes all the difference, Kohno goes on to win. Quite clearly, it’s no surprise that the 4th game, the match, and the title are his.
Many would say he deserved it.
Addendum: Since in this History I take not only a long look to the past, but also an occasional glance to the future, and since of course I don’t hesitate to include selected writings of my own that I think significant, I conclude this volume with an account of a little trip I took immediately after the Birmingham World’s: