CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

 

1979: Pyongyang: Women's/Men’s Singles Play.

 

U.S. Team member Alice Green, in one of her articles to the New York Times, spoke of how extremely partisan the North Korean spectators were, how they erupted with "screams and cheers" every time their players so much as earned--no, make that won--a point. Otherwise, she said, regardless of the quality of play in the arena, they maintained "a ghostly silence"--that is, if they even stayed around to watch. And, said Alice, 15,000 of them at the end of the China-North Korea Corbillon Cup final did not stay to follow the continuing China-Hungary Swaythling Cup tie. All this on a day that the Pyongyang Times began its lead front-page article with the headline, "Pyongyang Gymnasium Permeated With Love."

 

Women’s Singles

Since that "Gymnasium Permeated With Love" article referred really to North Korea’s "great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung"--his love for his people, expressed by "the great leader’s profound loving care and attentions shown" in the construction of this sports arena--it would be no surprise to read, at least in the Pyongyang Times, that two-time North Korean World Women’s Singles Champion, Pak Yung Sun, might personally have received a few coaching tips from her beloved and respected leader. Certainly she was a near 20,000 to 1 screaming favorite here. And perhaps rightly so--for she had only to get the cooperation of a few Chinese. And, as one fellow humorously put it, "It would mean war if the Chinese didn’t let her win."

Still, on her way to that quarter’s match with China’s 16-year-old Tong Ling, Pak did have a momentary problem with Mariann Domonkos, Canada’s #1 (16-1 in Category II play, and a deuce-in-the-5th 1st round Singles winner over Czechoslovakia’s Dana Dubinova). In the 1st, Domonkos, down 19-18, was not being sufficiently intimidated by the crowd, and when Pak served off to make it 19-all, it was as if she were far more nervous than her much lower-ranked opponent. Pak, however, won that game, then quickly reassured her fans (though could they doubt her?) by thrashing the Canadian girl 21-9.

But Mariann came back to take the 3rd easily. "Pak’s got a steady topspin," she acknowledged, "but nothing special, nothing that impresses me." Which meant perhaps that, after losing that 3rd game, the Champion sought advice not only from her suited-up coach but from her beloved and respected leader? For on returning she demolished the young Quebecer, 21-5.

"One thing she did bothered me a lot," said Mariann. "Often just as I was about to serve, she’d put her hand up--so I’d have to reset myself time after time. She didn’t bother me if I was doing well, but when I fell behind I began thinking about her and not the match."

In the next round, Pak, with her long, looping stroke, had no trouble with defensive-minded Shoko Takahashi, who’d just gotten by her Calcutta World-winning doubles partner, Maria Alexandru, in 5 in expedite. It’s always a pleasure to watch this intense Rumanian play--she fights as hard now as she did 20 years ago, though now she wins with antispin.

Tong Ling had no difficulty in reaching the quarter’s--either with Insook Bhushan, U.S. #1, who too often just seemed to be floating the ball, or anyone else. At Birmingham, Insook looked as if she were capable of winning the world title, but now that she’s older and an American citizen with of course no training prospects, she won’t be considered a World Championship contender again. (Suffered a bad blister, did she? Too bad, but perhaps it was inevitable.)

An interesting player to follow in this section before she met up with Tong was Japan’s Yoshiko Shimauchi--the more so perhaps if you were her first-round qualifying opponent who’d gotten pulverized 5, 2, and 3. Some of the women had to play four qualifying rounds, and in her third of these Shimauchi, after dropping the 1st game, disposed of U.S. #2 He-ja Lee, who with her new hairstyle was called, I think admiringly, "the Gergely of women."

To get to the 1st round proper, Shimauchi had to come from two games down to defeat the Irish #1, Karen Senior (9-6 in Category II play), who on losing the 3rd at 19 and coming so close to finding herself in clover, was just psychically spent. After which the plucky Japanese had to again go the limit (and win a big 19 3rd game) to down Hungary’s 19-year-old Zsuzsa Olah, World #12.

Advancing to the other quarter’s in this half of the draw were China’s World #3 Ge Xinai and Hungary’s 20-year-old Gabriella Szabo (10-4 in the Team’s).

Bespectacled Ge Xinai, a penholder disciple of Zhang Zielin, former World’s Men’s and Mixed Doubles Champion, is a very versatile, very steady attacker and defender. But she almost immediately got knocked out by Japan’s Kayo Sugaya. When, with her jerkiness, her awkwardness, Ge apparently just managed to win in 5 over the Japanese World #219, somebody joked that the North Korean, Ro Jong Suk, Ge’s 1st-round opponent, must have dumped to her.

Coming out to meet Ge Xinai in the 8th’s was the 24-year-old Swedish Champ Ann-Christin Hellman. She’d been down 18-16 in the 5th to Blanka Silhanova, the Czech #2 who’d fearlessly missed one too many forehands at game’s end. Against Ge, Hellman lost 17 and 6, then, undaunted, extended the Chinese star to deuce.

Szabo would be spared the shrieks of partisans rooting for Kim Bok Yong when Kim lost in the 1st round 27-25 to Jolanta Szatko, the Polish girl who’d beaten Japan’s Shimauchi in the Team’s. Szabo went 4 with Szatko, then another 4 in the 8th’s with England’s World #6 Jill Hammersley. According to one observer, the Englishwoman would have done better had she varied her spin more and placed her returns at deeper angles.

It wasn’t enough for Jill that she’d -18, 21, 19, 22 prevailed over World #25 Huang Xiping and her Hong Kong coach, or that earlier in the season she’d won the English and Welsh Opens. She now insists that at 27 she’s about to retire. Says that she’s going into the mail order table tennis business and have kids. That is, after she plays former England #1 Denis Neale (now no longer ranked) a pound-for-pound challenge match.

On the other side of the draw, World #4 Zhang Deying advanced in straight games to the quarter’s, where she’d meet World #18 Valentina Popova, whose progress right from the beginning had been sometimes haltingly difficult. First, the Russian #1 had met China’s World #8 Yang Ying, runner-up in the Asian Championships, and after seeing her two-game lead collapse had angled-in just enough backhands to win, 18 in the 5th. In the 2nd round, against England’s Karen Witt (who was in Pyongyang via the English Selection System in place of the more experienced Carole Knight and Linda Howard), Popova had a 6, 10, 7 breather--after which Karen, as if she were thinking of emigrating, went back to reading Cobban’s "A History of Modern France."

The Netherlands’ Bettine Vriesekoop, World #24, who has no penetrating shots but who keeps the ball rolling well, lost a 17-in-the-5th 8th’s match to Popova. However, considering she’s not been playing much in order to finish her high school studies there at Leiden (then it’s full-time play again before going on to the university), she surely took great satisfaction in beating both Choe Jong Hui (North Korea #8) and Pak Yong Ok (North Korea #2).

It was Choe and her umpire who earlier had so infuriated Hong Kong’s Hui So Hung that she’d left their qualifying match and went scowling off up into the stands. The Hong Kong player had been ahead 2-1 and 19-12 in the 4th when the umpire suddenly called four straight service faults on her, which so unnerved her that she ended up losing the game. When in the 5th the umpire again began to fault her, she stomped out of the court.

Which reminds me....In another match, after a protest and consequently an interminable hour or so wait, a Korean umpire, who’d unfairly given a point to a Korean player, was retired by the Tournament Referee. The European who comes in as the new umpire promptly instructs the Korean scorekeeper to push a button that will subtract a point from the Korean player involved, and return the game to its proper score. When the scorekeeper refuses to make the change, the umpire, thinking there’s a communications problem, gets down off his chair, comes over and pushes the button for her, then turns and heads back to his chair. Naturally the minute his back is turned the scorekeeper reverts the point to the Korean player. Later, someone said, "Look, whether she knows anything about table tennis or not, it’s an automatic act--she thinks she’s defending the worth of her country."

Before losing to Vriesekoop, Germany's #2 Kirsten Kruger had advanced out of the qualifying rounds by eliminating the U.S.’s feisty Kasia Dawidowicz. Earlier, Kasia, worried about being defaulted, had thoughtlessly run from her open gym bag and the tens (hundreds?) of dollars she had left loosely lying on top therein to hurry out to the court and go 2-0 and 20-16 match-point down to Canada’s Suzanna Kavallierou. Miraculously, however, everything stayed together for Kasia.

Poor Suzanna--to lose a match like that. And--painful association--poor Gloria Hsu. Up 17-10 in the deciding 3rd in the Team’s, knowing that if she wins the Canadian women are promoted to Category I, Gloria, alas, didn’t win, and the Canadians weren’t promoted.

Advancing to the remaining quarter’s were World #2 Zhang Li, Singles runner-up in ‘75 and ‘77, and North Korea’s World #11 Li Song Suk, who’d chopped down Hungary’s European Champ Judit Magos. China’s Li seemed so smooth a looper that after seeing her beat the Czech World #13 Ilona Uhlikova, 7, 6, 6--that same Uhlikova who in the Team’s had lost to He-ja Lee yet had bested World Champion Pak--it was hard for me to imagine that such a player could lose a game to anyone.

Another Chinese destined soon to dominate the World scene was Shanghai high-school sensation Cao Yanhua. She’d been beaten in the 8th’s by Magos--who, years ago as a very promising schoolgirl herself, had changed from shakehands to penholder after the success of Kimiyo Matsuzaki in the ‘63 Prague World’s. Against Cao, the longtime Hungarian Champ had looked slow, sick, and lost. And yet after losing a 19 3rd game that put her 2-1 down she’d wearily persevered, occasionally wristing away a Chinese throw-up serve or somehow finding strength to snap in enough loops to finally keep her--bandaged leg or no--standing tall.

The quarter’s match of most interest was between World Champion Pak and Chinese teenager Tong Ling. Pak of course, as we’ve seen, had been far from invincible. Her Corbillon Cup record at Birmingham had been an unimpressive 9-6, and here at Pyongyang, playing against every team but the U.S. (with Insook and He-ja, its two expatriate South Korean players), 8-3. She was said to be particularly vulnerable to Europeans who pushed short then quickly spun from either forehand or backhand to take the attack away from her. When she won that 1st game from Tong 21-8, and then, down 19-16, scrambled out of the 2nd, 22-20, to prolonged thunderous applause, it looked as though she and not the Chinese was in control. (And perhaps entering her mind too at this time was the thought that in the semi’s she’d be meeting Ge Xinai whom she’d beaten two straight in the Team’s and who no doubt; everybody agreed, she’d beat again.)

But whereas in the first two games Tong had been hitting to the corners and sometimes tightly steering the ball, she now began smacking shots into Pak’s middle--and, war or no war, as that fellow in the beginning jokingly said, won the next three games to send Pak and perhaps all but one of her coaches into retirement.

The premier player to advance to the semi’s to meet Tong was Ge Xinai with a straight-game victory over Szabo--but I suppose the U.S. contingent, for one, should have been forewarned. Back in Birmingham, our wily USTTA Rating Chair Neal Fox had had the foxy notion that, gee, this Chinese should be #1.

In the other half of the draw, still another Chinese, Zhang Deying, moving around her forehand well, high-toss-and-hit the struggling Popova away.

So, to make it an all-China semi’s, that left only a win from Zhang Li, twice Defending World-runner-up. "I really feel sorry for that woman," said a player who thought politics had deprived Zhang of the title.

But Zhang (who of course was not chosen to play against North Korea and World Champion Pak in the Team’s) hadn’t won those years she was Chang Li and so wasn’t going to now--not even against a chopper. Anyway, though I’m willing to give credit where credit is due (especially when it comes to besting the Chinese), I feel I ought to remind everyone that the North Korean in question, Li Song Suk, was beaten two straight by our Insook in Cup play.

In the one semi’s, the veteran Ge, with her long, hard pips, seems just too straight-game good for not tough enough Tong, who after all was making her worldly debut here in Pyongyang. Understandable, huh? Except that in November in the final of the Scandinavian Open, young Tong 15, 11, 15 toyed with Ge.

In the other semi’s, it soon appeared there would be an All-Chinese final when Zhang Deying won the first two games, 13, 13 from the North Korean Li. But then there was a hard-to-figure 14, 14 turnabout and the players moved into the 5th.

Two awful-looking forehands put Zhang down 10-6 at the turn, but just when you thought you saw the pattern, the red figure in the carpet, it was 10-all...12-all. Then the Chinese seemed to get the arm, and with the crowd chanting its spell, its swell, every second of every point, and with some in the stands literally jumping for joy, Zhang failed to cover a ball and it was 17-13 Li. Down 18-15, Zhang angrily smacked back the ball she’d just put into the net. Clearly she wanted to show her frustration. And the Chinese used to be so disciplined. Then two good picks by the North Korean put the crowd into a frenzy. After Li had scored the last, match-winning point, one guy who’d been flag-conducting his own separate coaching section broke, ran madly with his huge spear of a banner round and round the arena. As the crowd converged on Li, the ushers ran with her for their lives.

So. Maybe a North Korean would win after all.

And maybe not. Down 18-9 in the 1st, Li seemed bothered by Ge’s rubber--or something. In the 2nd, the Chinese, continuing to look so casual, so only half interested, never topspinned very forcefully, just seemed to be loosely going through the motions. Up 16-10, 18-13, 21-16, with that same effortless, monotonous stroking, she seemed to say, "If you want, I’ll topspin us into expedite."

As play continued, Ge of course rolled some more, but occasionally Li smacked one in. Maybe, as in the last match, the Korean will come from behind, win 3 in a row. Wouldn’t that be something to tell Marshall Kim Il Sung? Or he, if called upon, to tell others? Into the mid-game they played, and Li was up 15-13; up, too, several decibels, was the sound-strength of her supporters. Down 18-16, the Chinese was choking or dumping? And then the signal was given. Expedite it. Whereupon Ge won, 19 in the 3rd. And China once again had a World Singles Champion.

 

Men’s Singles

The Japanese players one ought to remember--"Tanaka was a genius," his arch-rival Ogimura had said--for at the last 14 World Championships the Japanese had won as many Singles Championships as the Chinese and the Europeans combined. 1969 Champ Shigeo Itoh was in Pyongyang--but as a Tamasu Butterfly analyst and photographer. He had in fact a never-to-be-forgotten moment when--as if all Japanese World Champions were the same--one in our USTTA party shook his hand and said warmly, "Good to see you again, Kohno." As it turned out, Mitsuru Kohno, the 1977 World Champion, was not defending his Singles title, and, in his already fading place, China’s Defending runner-up Guo Yuehua was the top seed.

After Guo had been given a 1st-round 24, -16, 12, 11 jolt from Rumania’s Zsolt Bohm, his match with Dragutin Surbek (20-2 in the Team’s) figured to arouse at least a few hundred spectators in the 20,000-seat arena. And, sure enough, their opening play didn’t disappoint. Surbek, up 20-19 in the 1st, had Gao going for his towel. But the Chinese came back, moved the no longer quite so acrobatic Yugoslav around, made him look uncharacteristically clumsy, and won the point. Again Surbek, threatening to pound Gao’s lobs into the stands, got the ad. But again the Chinese deuced it, forcing Surbek perhaps for the first time in anyone’s memory to look at least a little slow and awkward in trying to stretch back a counter. Finally, after more back and forth play, Gao won it 25-23.

Later, down 2-0 and 19-8, mortally wounded, the 32-year-old "Dragon," invincible in spirit, still 20-13...15...17...thrashed a very dangerous 21-19 tail.

So that was it then for the Yugoslav--no other point to be made? Not quite.

Surbek, though of course he’s had a very distinguished career, had never won a world title--not, that is, until, surprise, this year when he and his longtime doubles partner, Anton "Tova" Stipancic stunned first the Chinese in the semi’s--at least they looked stunned--and then the 1971 winners, Hungary’s Istvan Jonyer and his sad-faced partner Tibor Klampar, in the final.

Earlier, as Surbek was getting his elbow sprayed after a typical tumble, I’d heard several people talking about whether he was now finally going to retire. Could he really continue to keep his will to win? "Well," said one, "his determination’s always been his best talent. How else could he be good enough to win that recent Top 12 tournament?"

As for his partner Stipancic, even with "The Dragon" gone for a rather unsuccessful season in the German Bundesliga, he, Stipancic, still couldn’t win the Yugoslav Closed (he’d been beaten by Zoran Kalinic in the final). True, he’d lost some weight--but not enough. He was slow. "His hand’s still there," said one. "His hand will always be there--but the mind’s somewhere else." "I know," said another. "Look at him out there, throwing his racket into the net." "Yeah," said the first, "that army stint really hurt him: World runner-up in Calcutta, World #40 now--a disgrace. And yet a lot of the players are still scared of him. When Klampar plays him he’s scared."

But, ah, the Doubles. "All the way--they went all the way and never even lost a game!" said Dusan "Dule" Osmanagic, the spirited Yugoslav Captain, hugging and kissing his boys on both cheeks. It was a very surprising and very popular victory.

Coming through to meet Gao in the quarter’s was 1978 U.S. Open Champion Norio Takashima. The Japanese was spared a 2nd-round encounter with China’s Wang Huiyuan, non-Team member and anonymous Men’s and Mixed Doubles semifinalist here, when England’s John Hilton dispatched him in 5.

Hilton, fair-haired and boyish-looking though in his early 30’s, is something of a physical fitness fanatic and an enthusiastic, immaculately-dressed player. He usually uses a combination anti-loop/tackiness racket, but, says his teammate Des Douglas, "Every time you see him, he’s got some different Black Power, Phantom Power, Black Tackiness, Soft Screw, whatever."

Hilton is awkward to have to play because you can’t tell which side of his racket’s which until you’ve started your stroke and the ball is up close or has already bounced. He also occasionally uses a footstamp serve. "But you can’t use that serve," I told him--"it’s illegal." "There are a lot of things you’re not allowed to do," he said, "but you do them."

Of course no matter what he did, he couldn’t take a game from Takashima.

Milan Orlowski, World #7, on his way to Takashima, had no trouble with Hong Chol, North Korea’s #2, who’d gone 5 games with our own Danny Seemiller and then with Bulgaria’s Stephen Stephanov who’d compiled a very mediocre 6-6 record in Category II play.

Seemiller had lost a close match in the Team’s to a combined force of Hong, the Korean scorekeeper, and a Kim Il Sung support-button army of spectators, and had vowed revenge. But, as in their Cup play, Danny began by losing a crucial 19 1st game, though he’d rallied from 19-14 down. The Korean had been bothered by Danny’s serves, but up 20-19 he’d made an excellent return and followed with a forehand winner.

With the match tied 1-1 in games, Seemiller was again 21-19 done in, in part by too much passive blocking. For a moment the Big Brother P.A. System tried to soften the attack ("Please don’t root only for your Korean people, root for good points as well")--but it was no more effective than Danny’s temporizing, which allowed him to win the 4th, but not the 5th. Clearly the match had to go to the most unrelenting attacker and in this case that wasn’t Danny.

Danny, I have to say, did not play as well in this World’s as he has in the past--but of course the competition was much stiffer, the conditions far more adverse. Had he won his expected two matches against Denmark in the Team’s we would have no doubts now about staying in Category I. But in all fairness to Danny and everyone concerned, I really don’t think the U.S. Team or their unwieldy, sometimes distracting entourage were sufficiently together to give him the psychic focus, intensity, lift he needed.

All things considered, it seems to me impossible to blame any one person for our disappointing showing--even if you wanted to, and I don’t know anybody who wants to.

Ricky Seemiller played normally. Eric played normally, and at a very important moment in the Team’s rose to the occasion--kept us momentarily alive by taking two big matches in that must-win Denmark tie. Roger Sverdlik and Scott Boggan could not possibly have done better in their Cup play given the first-rate opposition they faced. When Roger in the Hong Kong tie finally had the opportunity to meet players he might beat, he won two important matches.

The sad truth is, though, and after five straight World’s it’s very obvious to me, that year after year the U.S. is fighting mightily over the same terrain--the combat zone between Category I and II--without making much progress. Nor could it be otherwise. We have no National Team that regularly engages others, no professional coaches, few, if any, professional players, no leaders committed to making the U.S. a world table tennis power, no premier places to play, no world-class players to practice with, no chance to be familiar with world-class playing conditions, and, worse, no prospects in the future for any of these things.

In short, it looks hopeless for the U.S. to become any kind of superpower--so much so that the very idea of us ever challenging China or Hungary seems totally absurd.

Which is not to say of course that just because one measures oneself against the best, and is found sadly deficient, one ought to quit. But if you can’t beat ‘em, you gotta join ‘em. Our players have to compete outside the U.S., outside North America, if they want to be good.

Orlowski, too, though he’d beaten Takashima in the Team’s, wasn’t too happy--he’d just as soon not have drawn him in the Singles. Since the Czechs haven’t a chopper, Orlowski hasn’t exactly been getting in a lot of daily practice against a defensive style. But up 1-0 and 8-0 in the 2nd, his flat hit crisp and sure, he seemed secure enough. And yet the next moment the Czech’s lead and surely too much of his confidence was 16-16 gone. At deuce Orlowski had Takashima on the run but missed a winning forehand and then another. Big swing.

Again in the 3rd it was deuce--but this time it was Takashima who picked a forehand...and it went in. Perhaps that induced the scrappy Czech to make an error. At any event, you could see that after losing those two deuce games Orlowski had checked out.

Getting to the other quarter’s in that same half of the draw was Li Zhenshi, World #6, and Gabor Gergely, World #3.

Before meeting Li, Germany’s Engelbert Huging had struggled through two 5-game matches. The first with Australia’s Steve Knapp, who, before losing, had persisted with dingo-like tenacity to win the 4th, 28-26. And the second with Rumania’s Teodor Gheorghe, who the round earlier had 19-in-the-5th outlasted the Netherlands’ Bert van der Helm. Since Huging was Germany’s best "material player," Li Zhenshi, up 2-0 and 17-4, ought to serve as a perfect role model, an inspiration, to all those who, lacking Li’s lifetime-learned, quick angled-off blocks and hits, complain about how impossible it is to play against all this weird new rubber, this "junk" spin.

Li’s opponent in the 8th’s was Hideo Goto, who’d survived three ad-filled 3-2 matches. First, the Japanese, up 20-15 in the 5th, just 19 got by Korea’s #3 Yun Chol. Then, 20-18 match-point down, he’d fought back to down England’s Paul Day 23-21 in the 5th. The fact that Paul hadn’t gotten very good results this season in the Bundesliga ("Balls are too soft, tables too slow") hadn’t helped his head any.

And lastly Goto, buoyed by two 23-21 games, had upset Jacques Secretin, World #14. Up 1-0 and at deuce in the 2nd, the Frenchman pushed one off, then looped off and followed by flipping his racket onto the table in disgust. At deuce in the 3rd, Secretin scored with mild topspin, tried to do the same again and missed, then tried an unsuccessful drop, then pushed off. After these three finishing errors, Secretin again flipped away his racket, bent to wrap a towel round his neck, and with hands on hips walked round and round as if defying anyone to stop him from self-strangulation.

But back then he came, looping harder, trying to get through Goto’s defense...until it was 16-all in the 5th. At which point--"Oozah!"--Hideo began picking in winners and jumping ecstatically, generally in that order, and ran out the game. Before Secretin could even pick up his towel (three World’s in a row he’d lost to a chopper), Goto was go-going down the French bench shaking everybody’s hand before jog-nodding happily over to his own.

In the 8th’s, Li Zhenshi, who supposedly uses a standard Double Happiness racket, with standard rubber right off the shelf, stopped the irrepressible Goto in 4. But for a furious while the Japanese was again battling away, exhorting himself to prevail whatever the odds. Up 26-25 in a game that will put him ahead 2-1, Goto gambles, picks out a ball and slugs it with all his might. It goes in. But then--unbelievable--it comes rocketing back into Japanese mind-space, having been spectacularly countered. Down 27-26 Goto is undeterred--pick-hits in another. At 27-all, he hits again--misses, spins around, contorts his features into a silent, alien scream. On losing 29-27 his face is Hideo-hideous.

Gergely, too, on his way to the quarter’s, was having his fuzzy-haired troubles. He opened by losing a game, and giving up 19 points in another, to Swedish junior Mikael Appelgren. The Swedes, now that Johansson’s retired, are in a developing phase. But since they probably have the best juniors in Europe--give them time, it takes maybe five years of international experience to become a good player--they’ll considerably improve their 8th-place Swaythling Cup finish.

Gergely had surprising 5-game difficulty with Valeri Shevchenko, who, on taking the 4th at 19 from Stipancic had gone on to win the 5th too. Shevchenko was the top-ranked Russian here in the absence of Sarkis Sarkhoyan and Anatoly Strokatov who, after returning from a tournament, were being disciplined for having tried to sneak too many jeans under the folds and around the shanks of old-maidish Mother Russia.

Up 19-16 and 20-18 in the 5th, Gergely looks...awful. Is just passively popping the ball back down the center line. Shevchenko’s serving (though not that squat serve the Russians developed, perhaps because, as I heard someone say, "The game’s so fast now, the server can’t get up in time"), and, to the consternation of his coach and teammates, Gergely’s half-choke, half-keep-the-ball-in-play strategy is to wish himself a winner....Down 21-20, seemingly so scared that his hair’s standing on end, the Hungarian instinctively loops one in, and then another, and when Shevchenko, trying to keep his serve return short, puts the ball into the net, Gergely raises his fists in triumph and, coming off the table, throws his towel at the Hungarian bench.

Shi Zhihao, the current (1979?) Chinese Champion--who for whatever reason didn’t play on China’s Cup Team (he lost to Klampar in the Yugoslav Open)--is Gergely’s opponent in the 8th’s. After pushing one off to lose the 1st at 19, the Hungarian suddenly finds himself winning the 2nd 21-8 and going 8-1 up in the 3rd. No problem, huh? Except of course this is the World’s and many a player has a streak of the Champion in him....Down 19-18 after a pirouette that seemed like a sudden stifled gasp, Gergely has to play through two net serves that the inexperienced North Korean umpire doesn’t call. Finally, at 22-all, he gets in a good flick return of serve (the shot that allows the Hungarians to beat the Chinese?), and wins the 3rd, 24-22.

Up 2-1 and 17-15 in the 4th, it looks good for Gabor--but supple-wristed Shi stays strong with tricky, table-controlling chop-blocks followed by crisp cracks, both crosscourt and down the line, to extend the match.

In the 5th, up 20-19, the Hungarian is passive, and Shi passes him with a line-drive beauty. There’s a deafening roar--merely one more deafening roar--from the stands above. I look up, but--though the score, deuce in the 5th, is plainly visible to all--I cannot with a binocular eye find one face--not one--that is watching or even glancing at this end-table match. The 9-5 applause, willed, wells-up through the Gymnasium for Li Song Suk who’s in the first part of her first game with China’s Zhang Li. Meanwhile, it’s Gergely’s ad. He’s looped one in--won the match? The response is a deafening roar...followed by another...and another...and another...and another...long after he and Shi, unnoticed, have left the arena.

Moving towards a quarter’s match on the other side of the draw were Lu Yaohua, runner-up in the Chinese Closed but still an unknown even to those on the circuit ("I never saw the fellow before," said England’s Douglas, one of Europe’s Top 5), and Seiji Ono, runner-up to Takashima in the Japanese Closed.

The tall, 18-year-old penholder Lu first came to everyone’s attention when he 12, 8, 15 pip-zipped through 26-year-old ex-World Champ Stellan Bengtsson, the only remaining member of the Swedish Team that had defeated the Hungarians for 3rd place in the last World’s.

Bengtsson had a shoulder injury earlier in the season and many thought he aggravated it here. For after compiling a 13-3 record in the 1st Stage of the Team event, with wins over Takashima and Ono, he didn’t play in the crossover matches and later defaulted in both the Men’s and Mixed Doubles. Some were speculating that Bengtsson, especially since his injury, was more vulnerable now to...distractions, that he wasn’t psychically as strong as he’d been in years past. One analyst said that whereas Bengtsson used to keep the ball short so his opponent couldn’t get in to loop it, he now has to accept the fact that his opponent has learned to flick-in that short ball. This means that Bengtsson is no longer the steady aggressor that he was and so doesn’t get to smash the ball as much.

Since Lu hadn’t played in the Cup matches--China, like every other team, could play only 5 men--many observers were interested to see (compare World #9 Shi Zhihao vs. Geregely) how this unknown Chinese "reserve" (?) would play against Klampar, one of the world’s best. As it turned out, Klampar, winner with that marvelous pick-up backhand flick, of the recent French, Yugoslav, and Czech Opens, had perhaps a little too much birthday cake--for one game against this Chinese was the best he could do.

Advancing to meet Lu was 23-year-old Ono of Osaka who in his spare time works in a piano factory (no, he doesn’t play himself). Again and again, stroke after varied stroke, he pounded away a la Johansson's "hammer," his follow through vibrating winners for him. First against German Champion Peter Stellwag whom he outlasted in 5. This was a very big match, for the winner had only Chinese left in the eighth’s, quarter’s, semi’s, and final--and anyone aspiring to be a Champion always wanted to test himself against the Chinese, right? Or so Ono must have been telling himself after losing the 3rd, 4th, and 5th games--no, not the 5th, but he was down 10-3 that last game.

Having survived Stellwag, Ono, strengthened by his comeback, now none too gently assisted the superb pick-hit defender, Huang Liang, 25-23 in the 4th, out of the tournament.

Actually, Huang might not even have been out there playing Ono in the 8th’s had circumstances not demanded it. During his 16th’s match with Cho Yong Ho, the North Korean #1, who earlier this season was a semifinalist in both the Chinese-dominated Asian Games and Asian Championships, there was a disputed point. This not only stopped play, stopped the match (as earlier because of notoriously bad officiating Cup matches had been stopped and bureaucratic decisions interminably, absurdly waited for), but--and this was unprecedented--did not allow the resumption of the match until 17 hours later!

Down 2-1 (after losing the 3rd at 19) but up 11-9 in the 4th, Cho returned a ball that Huang and the entire Chinese bench thought missed the table. The point, however, was given to Cho--in what the Free World had come to call a "Juche edge" (in propagandistic mockery of Marshall Kim Il Sung’s Juche ideal that--in all-controlling North Korea of all places--man makes his own destiny). But because Cho hadn’t raised his hand in the customary "I’m sorry for being so lucky" way (as if to acknowledge that he himself hadn’t thought he’d won the point), Huang asked the stony-faced umpire to reconsider. Of course he wouldn’t--for no North Korean umpire, linesman, or scorekeeper ever corrected any call, no matter how bad, no matter how vehemently protested. The Chinese, whatever their understandings were with the North Koreans, wouldn’t--as a matter of principle?--let this call go. They were visibly angry, feeling, one presumed, the injustice that the Americans, French, and who knows how many others had felt, and so stopped play. But this time the usual hour or so wait came and went--and still no delicate decision could be made.

The Chinese were arguing that they had (what the North Koreans didn’t) objective proof of their position--a videotape of the point. Naturally they wanted to show it to those officiating. Naturally those officiating didn’t want to see it. Or so the story went round. Meanwhile, in a rare display of emotion, a Chinese woman in the stands just off court was screaming mad at having been cheated. And a well-known player was rancorously thrusting a dagger, as it were, into the ear of our polite, young, ideally sensitive interpreter, Mr. Kim.

"Nobody coming here likes your cheating," he told the 18-year-old North Korean. "You’re the host. If you act like this nobody will respect your country. Only against North Korea do the players have a problem. China in its history never had a problem with anybody. China wants "Friendship First." This is the first time I’ve ever seen China protest like this. I don’t know why you are doing this. You waste your money--you won’t promote your country like this. Tell your leader. Explain to him how I feel."

"I will," said Mr. Kim with a perplexed little frown.

Eventually play resumes--with Huang, having lost the disputed point, down 12-9. And now Cho is looping like one possessed, and Huang is equally relentless in returning the ball. The North Koreans, massed in the stands above, chant fervidly their waves of Ohhhs, timing with ritual regularity the onomatopoetic loop after loop, point after point tide of them. The Chinese, Europeans, Americans, and Oceanians have bunched themselves round the court, cheering uninhibitedly for a victory for the Free World--the more so because in some instances they’re irritated or even angered at being pushed aside by North Korean photographers desperate to do their job, get picture after picture the whole country wants to see. Aficionados, intent on both players and backdrop, are bearing witness to what is likely the most exciting moment of the Men’s draw.

In this finally continued 4th game, Huang came from behind to catch Cho--but at deuce the North Korean had the strength of inspiration.

In the 5th, the match was post-mid-game close when Huang (who had not missed one pick-hit, who was like 10 for 10 since his 12-9 down in the 4th return), seeing the now or never need to extend himself, opened the palm of his hand to show (you should have seen the effect of this at Birmingham) the most feared weapon at his command--the serve. Cho, helpless, missed three in a row--and though he fought gamely on, the match, the war, was over.

"The North Koreans made a big mistake cheating the Chinese," said one long-time observer. You can bet there won’t be any World Champion from Pyongyang this year."

Into the remaining quarter’s came the Czech Josef Dvoracek, Europe #15, who would eventually play Asian Games winner Liang Geliang.

The tall, strong Dvoracek, losing games along the way with awkward consistency, got a break when the Danish #1, Claus Pedersen, ousted World #15, frail-looking Lu Qiwei. Lu had played for China without success in the final team tie against Hungary, and, as one fellow put it regarding Lu’s 1st match in the Singles, "He just didn’t seem to be there, did he?" But with his little gifts (one U.S. player was quite pleased with the umbrella pen he’d been given), Lu certainly was a winner at promoting Chinese goodwill.*

The 16th’s match between Dvoracek and Pedersen was 3-2 close. Invariably, whoever got the first loop in would win the point, for on these tables the ball generally jumped high and was difficult to block. Pedersen appeared to have the momentum, for, though he’d lost the 3rd game at 7 to go 2-1 down (how is it that rather evenly matched players so often get beat by such lop-sided scores--do they just abandon "lost" games in order to conserve their energy?), he was 20-16 up in the 4th. Then, teeter-totter, the game was up in the air and the Dane barely held on to win at 19...then he was down, grounded, at 5-0 in the 5th. Which proved to be much too much of a spot against Dvoracek whose key wins over Jonyer and Klampar at Budapest helped the Czechs win the European League.

Dvoracek’s final opponent before getting to Liang Geliang was England’s Douglas, World #8. "The Black Flash" (is he still called that in his native Jamaica?) has steadily improved over the years since his first World’s in Sarajevo when he was 17. But he knew even if he were playing well he’d have a demanding match with steady topspinner Dvoracek, for he’d lost to him in the Team’s. And, sure enough, up 1-0 and at deuce in the 2nd, in a game he needed to win to maintain his confidence, Douglas was forced into blocking the Czech’s high-kicking ball and lost 23-21. After that, he just 10, 7 seemed to want to quit.

World #2 Liang had few early-round problems. And even when he did, they seemed to be of his own making. When he was in the process of beating Igor Solopov, the #2 Russian, 3-0, I heard somebody say, "Look at Liang. Doesn’t he look awful now? He used to be a good player. His game’s really gone down since Birmingham." And, weirdly, Liang did look awful--his strokes were so cramped and strange I wondered what in the World’s he was doing. "He was probably trying out some new rubber," said someone more worldly-wise than most."

Liang might also have been a little flaky in his 1st match in the Mixed Doubles--which he and his World Champion Singles partner Ge Xinai four rounds later would win. With his team up 2-0 but down 20-19 in the 3rd to the Yugoslav pair of Kalinic and Gordana Perkucin, Liang served off to lose the game...which 21-19 in the 5th later almost cost him the match and the title. Now if this wasn’t carelessness on his part, what was it?

Also, though I’m sure there’s a rational explanation for it (as I’m beginning to think there is for everything), why didn’t Liang defend his Men’s Doubles title with Li Zhenshi? Isn’t it difficult to believe the way Liang was tumbling all over the court that he and Guo Yuehua would rather lose to the Hungarians in the semi’s?

Coming up to take his turn at getting zapped by Liang was Ralf Wosik of West Germany. Wosik had beaten Ricky Seemiller in 4--but not before Ricky had played one of the most satisfying matches of his career against Chang Won Hyon, North Korean #7, who I’d heard was a Junior Champion in the Asian Games.

The deciding game for Ricky, after he’d won the 1st, was the 2nd where, rallying from 19-16 down, he got to deuce. Chang then failed to return serve, Ricky held strong, and smiling, shrugging at finding himself unexpectedly up 2-0, said, "When you’re loose, you’re loose."

But after he’d lost the 3rd somebody pointed out that his penholder opponent was using an illegal racket--the back of it wasn’t stained. This caused some confusion, not of course in the umpire’s mind--he always knew what to do, his duty was clear--but in the minds of the North Korean players and coaches who knew (what the umpire didn’t) the ITTF ruling. Fortunately for the home-town favorites there was a 5-minute break, stretched out a little, while some ugly-looking stain was leprously misapplied. Later at a mid-game point in the 4th, there was mild protest talk of an illegal serve--but thereafter Chang was on his best behavior, and, when Ricky ran it out from 18-all, only the scorekeeper wouldn’t shake hands with him. Naturally North Korean television didn’t show a replay of this match.

The Liang-Jonyer 16th’s match was disappointing--though the Chinese tried his best to be dramatic. Liang had lost to all three Hungarians in the first China-Hungary Cup tie, had then sat out the second. In this match, because Jonyer was so wiped out from his 14-5 herculean efforts in the Team’s, or from celebrating that first team victory in 27 years, or for any other reason you can think of, Liang retributively shaking a mean, bad-actor fist at the Hungarian had him down 2-0 and 7-0 in the 3rd.

Oh well, Jonyer can always go back to giving $700-$1,000 exhibitions with Surbek, or, if things are slow, he can figure out how to market some of that new Hungarian hair tonic (guaranteed to grow hair on anyone’s head) that people in Budapest are supposedly standing in line for at 4 a.m.

Surprisingly, most of the quarters’ matches didn’t seem very interesting--or maybe it was just that, with no North Korean playing and the stands so empty, the tournament seemed old and finished before its time. Maybe, too, it wasn’t just the cold food the players were getting tired of. Said one freedom-loving Westerner, "I don’t think I’ve ever been to a place as depressing as this. Players are slowly cracking up--are borrowing each other’s cassettes, are drinking, just to kill the time." Whereas if they were home....

Anyway, as everybody knew from Birmingham, Takashima, marvelous though he is at getting a near perfect length on his ball--chop after chop deep to the white line--had no chance against Guo.

And Liang, who, regardless of what anyone presumes to say about his game collapsing, is capable of performing as if he were the world’s greatest player, 63-34 destroyed Dvoracek and so moved into one more semi’s here.

Li Zhenshi--shouldn’t he be in the semi’s too? I mean, who knowledgeable wouldn’t discount his Singles losses to the Yugoslavs--Savnik in Calcutta, Kosanovic in Birmingham? Of course he has to overcome Gergely, who’d -13, 9, 17 beaten him in the Swaythling Cup final.

The 1st game, which Li won at deuce, was a big one. In the 2nd, the Chinese, confident, was at his rapid-fire best--was picking up the ball so fast on his forehand (has any player faster reflexes?) that the score was 16-4 before, too late, Gergely could even begin to trade off points. The trade continued--with Gergely winning the 3rd then losing the deciding 4th.

The Hungarian superstars--all of whom had now been eliminated by the Chinese--were said to be psychically down. I don’t mean because they were beaten by the Chinese in Singles but because they had beaten the Chinese in the Team’s. Sound confusing? Paradoxical? The best analysts assure me that it’s all pretty simple when you think about it.

And while you’re at it, why not think about Ono’s opponent, Lu Yaohua--whose game nobody knows. Will he be the 4th Chinese semifinalist? (At Birmingham there’d been only three--and Kohno.) Perhaps he’d even be the new World Champion? Wouldn’t that be an in-depth surprise?

When on into the 5th he and Ono go, it’s anybody’s guess as to what will happen. Up 7-6, the Chinese serves off. Down 11-9 he scores with some strange semi-loop that had a low, dead trajectory. Ono’s up 13-12, but his face shows the strain. And then something very unusual happens. Lu returns 1-2-3-4 of Ono’s serves--returns them all--OFF the table. Is apparently totally unnerved, broken. The ever intense Ono finishes him off with a down-the-line crack that some imagined would send a tremor through the All China Sports Association.

The 18-year-old Lu couldn’t take the pressure, had lost his concentration? Ono had been holding back some super serves for just such an occasion? Whatever the reason, as people began to talk, History was beginning to repeat itself, and a Japanese--not Kohno but Ono--had come to take his place with the Chinese as a potential Champion.

The turning point in the 5-game Liang-Ono semi’s was the 19 second game that Ono, down 1-0 and looking as if he might succumb from malnutrition, had to win--and did. Liang, who in his glorious past had been both a brilliant retriever and attacker, too often seemed content (though win or lose always cunningly content) to allow his opponent topspin control of the match, and so, after that close 2nd game, the outcome, though surprising to many, might well have been predictable.

Nobody seemed too interested in the Guo Yuehua-Li Zhenshi match, for most felt that such a high level winner had been decided on by the collective Chinese before the players went out to the table. Guo won 15 in the 4th, and for the second straight World’s moved into the final.

In the Japan-China Friendship tournament in May, 1978, Guo had defeated Ono, 14, -26, 14--and former World Champion Nobuhiko Hasegawa, writing in the Japanese Table Tennis Report, had been impressed. He thought that Gao spent at least six hours a day practicing, and said that no one was better at serve and follow.

Of course that was a year ago.

In the 1st against Ono, Guo, who very early showed he could successfully keep the ball short, didn’t follow up the advantages he often had, but instead passively blocked then deliberately backed away from the table. Ono, however, failed to return at least half a dozen serves and so in a badly played beginning didn’t get anything going either. At 17-all Guo failed to return serve. Then he put Ono’s return of serve into the net. But down 19-17 he took the offense for two successful points--as if he could do this anytime he wanted. At 19-all he popped up Ono’s backhand thrust return of serve and backed up to lose the point. Up 20-19 Ono appeared to choke--returned Guo’s serve long. Deuce.

After Ono went up 21-20 on a perfectly placed block, Guo scored with two fast loops. But again Guo appeared to set the ball up and Ono obliged by socking it in. There followed a long, marvelous away-from-the-table loop exchange that brought Guo to 22-all and the spectators to the realization that they were suddenly watching some of the most exciting play of the tournament. Guo blocked one into the net, then balanced with a serve and fast follow--23-all. But now, pushing his serve return into the net, he fell game-point down, and when he was again caught back from the table Ono passed him with a sharply angled-off winner.

In the 2nd, the Japanese came out of his corner nodding and dancing. Again Guo began setting up the ball. Again Ono was having difficulty with those Chinese serves. Whenever Guo got to a ball with his forehand the point was his--but he wasn’t getting to too many. Why not? Because as the match progressed Ono was playing better and better? But then from 14-9 Ono, it was abruptly 16-all. In the end game Guo again made costly errors--first hit the ball far too long then into the net. Which maybe made it easy for Ono--he socked one in and finished with a down-the-line ace.

In the 3rd, Guo was down 3-0. Then for the first time he took the offense from backcourt. By mid-game Ono had missed three more of Guo’s serves--and the score was 9-all. Guo, again too far back, returned the kind of well-angled ball he had heretofore not been able to and moved in to control the table. But, still having his problems, was 17-12 down. Why wasn’t he doing what strategically everybody sees he should do? Seize the initiative with his incomparable forehand. It was as if he didn’t want to win. And then, just when many had counted him a goner, he rallied, pulled to 17-16. And was again close when Ono, up 18-16, missed a wind-up backhand.

Then, at 18-17, Fate intervened. Guo, moving, changed direction, and, anticipating an angular return, twisted his left leg and, on scoring, fell to the floor. He was quickly ministered to, managed to get up, and, surprise, ran out the game.

Then he fell again--as if to show it was the same Guo, though in dumping himself into a heap like that he’d just given the Philoctetic illusion that, my god, he played better wounded than he did at full strength.

There was no doubt, however, that Guo had seriously injured himself--so don’t think for some Chinese box of a reason he was faking it. Observer after observer verified the knot in his left leg was real. And now, thigh taped up, he could only stand there at the table flat-footed--couldn’t move to hit a forehand if he’d wanted to. Again he tried to continue, but it was hopeless.

Guo’s destiny was not to win the World Championship at Birmingham, or here in Pyongyang. Li Furong understood--he signaled Enough, and bent over to comfort his player.

Ono, bowing, masking his eyes with a towel, was escorted off court--as if he, too, or at least some part of him, was numb to what had unexpectedly occurred.

 

SELECTED NOTES.

            *And that goodwill will continue, for, in the summer of 1986, Lu Qiwei will reportedly (TTT, May-June, 1986, 9) come from Beijing's Chinese National Sports Institute to Minnesota to personally coach Juniors Tryg, Thor, and Rio Truelson.

            I might add that Zhang Deying will also reportedly turn up in the States (TTT, Nov., 1987, 18), in the summer of 1987, to take the jog of Head Coach at the Monteray Park, CA Training Center.

            How long either will stay in the U.S., I can't say.