Chapter XX: Novi Sad, 1981: Swaythling and Corbillon Cup Play
At the 1979 Pyongyang World Championships, China won four of the seven World titles. Quite an accomplishment for just one country, the uninitiate would say. But, as all aficionados know, if that one country is China, well....
At the ‘81 Novi Sad World Championships, China returned with a vengeance: won all seven of the World titles--a sweep unprecedented since Hungary did it in 1933.
In no event were the Chinese players more devastating than in the Women’s Teams, for there they won 27 straight ties without the loss of a single match.
Corbillon Cup Play
"Friendship First, Competition Second"--that was what the Chinese were saying, and what was being heard round the world, 10 years ago. Here in Novi Sad something else seemed to be coming through.
Still, in the 8-team Group A round robin play, if you looked closely you could see signs of...something. Qi Baoxiang dropped two games--one with an encouraging smile, as it were, to Czechoslovakia’s Marie Hrachova (3-7 in Team play), three years away yet from being a European Top 12 winner; the other with no smile at all, to South Korean star Lee Soo Ja (6-3), whom Qi would later beat in the Cup final in straight games, then still later, after spotting her two games, would lose to in 5 in the quarter’s of the Singles. Tong Ling (watch her) was -18, 8, 18 embarrassed--was she?--by Germany’s #4, Anke Olschewski, who certainly made her single Cup appearance count for a lot. And the very impressive Cao Yanhua, partnered with Qi, gave up a game to Finland’s Grefberg sisters, Monica (0-1) and Sonja (4-6), and gave up another with current Women’s Doubles holder Zhang Deying (who’d successfully defend with Cao) to Hungary’s Edit Urban (6-3) and Zsuzsa Olah (2-1).
South Korea, the favorite for the #2 spot in Group A, had to have been shocked by their loss to West Germany. Ursula Hirschmuller Kamizuru, dropping a 19 1st game to An Hae Sook but compensating by winning one from Lee Soo Ja, scored two big winners, and Kirsten Kruger prevailed against An, 25-23 in the deciding 2nd.
Germany also got a boost by knocking down Japan, 3-2. Last summer, Japan’s Kayoko Kawahigashi had won the first of her three U.S. Opens by beating Germany’s Kamizuru in 4 in the final. Here in Cup play she lost to both Kamizuru and Kruger--which allowed Kruger in the 5th match to again came through, in 3 over Rie Wada. This was 5th-place finisher Japan’s only close tie--and prevented the Japanese from playing in the #3-#4 crossover block.
Germany survived still another 3-2 tie--against about-to-be relegated Hong Kong (who finished 8th when Hui So Hung’s two wins weren’t enough to slip by 7th-place Finland). The Germans had been down 2-0 to Hong Kong--Kamizuru having lost two 19 games to Lai Sau Lam--before a straight-game (26-24 in the 2nd) doubles win provided the impetus for their turnaround.
But as Germany could not beat Hungary or Czechoslovakia, they had to settle for 4th in the Group.
The only 3-2 tie either the Hungarians or the Czechs played was against one another--and, had the Czechs won, they would have finished 3rd rather than 6th. But Hrachova lost to both Beatrix Kishazi (in 3) and Urban (19 in the last game of the tie).
Though South Korea had been beaten by Germany as well as China, they stayed in contention for the title by defeating Hungary 3-1. Lee Soo Ja, who would win the 1983 U.S. Open over Kim Kyung Ja, her Cup teammate here, fell to Urban, but rebounded to beat Magos.
Over in Group B, the North Koreans were almost as dominant as the Chinese were in Group A. They didn’t drop a singles match, and lost only one doubles by the slimmest of margins, 21, -16, -22--to the Swedish pair of Ann-Christin Hellman and Marie Lindblad.
Though the USSR (2nd) gave up only scattered matches--one each to France, Sweden, and Yugoslavia--they were annihilated by North Korea, could score only 75 points total.
Sweden finished 3rd, largely on the basis of their 3-2 wins over France (7th) and Rumania (4th), and despite a 3-1 loss to England (6th) when ‘76 European Champion Jill Hammersley, eschewing ‘79 talk of retirement, played 1-2-3 consecutive matches, and scored with all three.
France’s Claude Bergeret won her opening match against Sweden’s Lindblad, then teamed with Nadine Daviaud to -20, 19, 16 down Anneli Hernvall and Eva Stomvall. But Hellman scored again, over Bergeret, 18 in the 3rd, and Lindblad took Daviaud, also in 3.
Against Rumania, Sweden again rallied from 2-1 down. Eva Ferenczi won her opener over the Eva across the table from her, then teamed with Olga Nemes (not yet a teenager!) to -20, 21, 13 sneak the doubles away from Hernvall/Stromvall. But then, after losing the 1st at deuce, Hellman destroyed Ferenczi, and Stromvall wisely kept her focus on the gifted school-child opposite.
Although Rumania lost to France, 3-2, they avoided the #5-#6 crossover block by beating Yugoslavia (5th), 3-2. One of Rumania’s heroines was Ferenczi: she’d disposed of the French in straight games, now she held strong against the Yugoslavs--downing Gordana Perkucin, 19 in the 3rd, and Branka Batinic, deuce in the deciding 2nd. The other heroine was Nemes, who, in the penultimate match against Yugoslavia, after losing the 1st game to Perkucin at deuce, won the next two at 18.
England averted any possibility of relegation by blitzing both France and game but outclassed India (about to be demoted to Category II).
The "semi’s" crossovers that would determine the Cup winner were China vs. the USSR, and South Korea vs. North Korea.
Narine Antonian (3-4) took the 1st game from China’s Cao at 17. What followed, the Soviets resisted, but with the limited firepower of 71 points.
South Korea’s Lee Soo Ja, World Top 5, was too strong in singles and doubles for North Korea’s 2-time World Champion Pak Yung Sun (9-1), ‘79 World finalist Li Song Suk (8-1), and her doubles partner Kim Gyong Sun. North Korea avoided being shut out when Pak took down Lee’s doubles partner Hwang Nam Sook, 2-0.
The 3-0 lackluster final showed why--you name the game--China was a 5-point favorite.
Swaythling Cup Play
In Swaythling Cup play in Group A, the first and second rounds showed newly promoted Indonesia losing 5-0 to Japan and China. Understandable of course, but as they would do no better against anyone else in their 8-team round robin (0 and 35 would be their embarrassing match score), they would naturally fall back into Catgory II at the ‘83 World’s in Tokyo while the U.S. would come up to take their place.
West Germany with immediate losses to Sweden and England was quickly out of it. In the absence of Engelbert Huging and Jochen Leiss, now retired, they could manage only the win over Indonesia.
"Table tennis is a weird sport," Peter Stellwag, the 24-year-old German Champion was saying. (He, like the other Germans, was playing with a new green-colored "Clipper" rubber.) "No matter how much you’ve trained, if there’s something bothering you when it comes time to play, you can’t do well."
Does that explain why in the tie with Sweden, after his loss to Welsh Stiga Open winner Ulf Thorsell, Peter kicked a barrier six feet into the air. "Man!" That’s what his curse sounded like to me. Umpire and scorekeeper looked at one another. One tentatively motioned to the other to hold up a card. But what card? No one knew. Angry as Stellwag was though, he was careful to cover both sides of his green racket with little green moons of thin paper before sliding it back into its case.
In the 2nd and 3rd rounds, Sweden (a team characterized by young professionals playing in the German Bundesliga) was all but knocked out of contention with losses to France (5-0) and England (5-3). What happened?
Against France--a loss that was "beyond imagination," said U.S. Coach Ai Liguo--20-year-old Ulf Carlsson, a Swede with a Johansson-like hammer kill who’d just won three from Germany (off in a deserted hallway I chanced to see him squatting, jumping, sprinting--as much physically as psychically working himself up), lost 19-in-the-3rd to Patrick Birocheau; while Stellan Bengtsson and Thorsell dropped equally key 19-in-the-3rd matches to Jacques Secretin.
Against England, Carlsson couldn’t beat Paul Day, and, despite the meant-to-be-encouraging ritual clapping and hand-shaking that went on among all the Swedish team members (or almost all of them), Bengtsson and Thorsell couldn’t beat Desmond Douglas or John Hilton.
But in the 4th round, England, who, thanks primarily to Douglas’s 9-0 record, had been rolling along very nicely--5-2 over South Korea, 5-3 over West Germany (Day helped swing the tie by downing Ralf Wosik deuce in the 3rd), and 5-3 over Sweden--now suddenly lost a crucial 5-4 set-to with France.
When Douglas won his 10th straight match against Christian Martin, and Day, as one Englishman put it, "had the win of his life over Secretin" 19 in the 3rd, England looked in great shape. Now if European Champ Hilton could beat Birocheau....
Some time ago, Danny Seemiller had occasion to practice with Hilton. "It’s amazing," said Danny, "how the guy changes his racket. I never knew when or where his anti was coming from." Then Danny went on to talk about the new rule that the ITTF was considering--one that would force every player to have two different colored sides to his bat (a rule, incidentally, that did not muster the requisite 2/3 delegates’ votes--perhaps because the manufacturers didn’t like the idea). Such a rule, Seemiller thought, would have serious consequences for a bat-flipper like Hilton--for, said Danny, "a fraction of a second awareness can make all the difference."
But the generally good-humored Hilton had not been having the success this spring he’d enjoyed earlier. In the recent European Top 12 tournament, he’d finished last (the players were catching on to him, his racket?). And already in his first three ties here in Novi Sad he’d lost half his matches--to the South Korean Park Lee Hee (deuce in the 3rd), to the Germans Stellwag and Wosik, and to the Swede Carlsson.
And, no, he did not beat Birocheau--nor, later, Martin.
In that same Top 12 tournament Douglas had lost to Secretin--and now he lost to him again. Why? Because by constantly changing the spin he slowed down Des and his rhythms.
When it turned out that Day had suffered a groin injury in his match with Secretin, was hurting more and more whenever a ball was put to his wide forehand and so couldn’t quite 20, -21, -14 finish off Birocheau two straight, England was down 4-2.
Hilton made it 4-3 when, though he hadn’t the power to go through, he did find a patient, mix-him-up way to down Secretin, 14 times the Champion of France. Then when Douglas with his quick cover deflected away Birocheau’s loops, it was all up to Day. Paul, however, no matter how important the match or what the pain, couldn’t do it.
And France, who’d lost only to China, had won a very big match.
While France was playing England, undefeated Japan was stung--was 5-0 devastated--by 2-time loser Sweden. Young Mikael Appelgren, winner of the 1980 U.S. Open, had replaced Thorsell--and it made quite a difference. Now that Thorsell with his 1-6 record had literally disappeared ("No, he wasn’t playing too well," one wit said--"too much practicing with Mike Bush"), the Swedes in blanking World Champion Seiji Ono, Norio Takashima, and Hideo Goto, looked like the second best team in the Group.
In fact, Coach Ai felt that the Swedes were stronger than the Hungarians. "They are faster, and their attack more powerful." Although they’re not yet steady enough, said Coach Ai, the Swedes’ speed will win out over the Hungarians’ spin.
Of course to have any chance for the crossover and the Swaythling Cup itself, Sweden had to beat China. If here in the fifth round miraculously that should happen, the following possibilities were interesting:
(1) Providing China beat England and Japan they would be assured of coming first.
(2) If Sweden were to beat Indonesia and South Korea they would have two losses.
(3) If France, who’d lost to China and was now playing South Korea, were to beat South Korea and West Germany and lose to Japan they would have two losses.
(4) If Japan, who’d lost to Sweden and was now playing England, were to beat England and France, and lose to China, they would have two losses.
(5) If England, who’d lost to France and was now playing Japan, were to beat Japan and Indonesia and lost to China, they would have two losses.
England-Japan looked like it’d be over with first (which would clarify possibilities four and five above). Whoever lost this tie (barring an unlikely win over China) would be out of contention.
Because of Day’s groin injury England had to play their #5 Douggie Johnson. What about their #4 Bob Potton? He’d been unlucky. Casually kicking a soccer ball with some young autograph seekers at the stadium, he’d turned an ankle, his foot had become swollen, and he couldn’t play for a while. Actually, the short, scrappy Johnson, who played with an antispin his English opponents were getting used to, had the best results next to Douglas and Hilton of any Englishman abroad, so maybe he wasn’t such a bad reserve after all. Maybe. But a game from Takashima wasn’t enough; 19 in the 1st against Ono was worse.
Nor could Hilton, with losses to 25-year-old Japanese Champion Hiroyuki Abe and Takashima, do any better.
Only Douglas (watch how when he serves backhand from the forehand side he kicks up his right foot), with wins over Ono, Abe, and now Takashima in the 7th match, was keeping England alive.
"The Japanese have no technique," said one critic. All this emphasis on--oh, I don’t know--footwork diagrams, say, is just nonsense. You’ve got to understand how to stroke the ball."
In the eighth match, Hilton, whose eventual round robin record in the Group would be 8-10, beat Ono, the World Champion, whose eventual round robin record would be 10-7, in straight games.
But in the ninth match, England’s rally fell short--Abe disposed of Johnson, their last hope for the crossover, 8 and 6.
"It’s not that more and more players are getting better," said the critic. "It’s that the standard is really declining."
Coming into their tie with Sweden, the Chinese had won 20 matches in a row. First off now was 20-year-old Cai Zhenhua (Tchai Tsenwah), a lefty shakehander, against another lefty, 28-year-old former World Champion Bengtsson. Both were combination-bat players (almost no one, it seemed, was playing two-sided inverted anymore). Cai had black Chinese antispin ("It’s much better rubber--gives you much more control--than what the U.S. players use," someone said). Bengtsson, playing with a 7-ply racket, had pips out on the backhand. "No, it’s not Phantom," somebody said. "Some rubber that’s not out on the market yet." In this preparatory meeting for their Men’s Singles match, Bengtsson won in 3.
Next up was Carlsson, a daringly aggressive player who last November won the Scandinavian Open over Guo Yuehua. That was why the world’s best player wasn’t playing this tie? Carlsson’s opponent was Wang Huijuan, winner of the lots-of-fun Italian Open last fall (all during the season different Chinese had won different singles and doubles tournaments round the world, much as they were going to share the unprecedented 7 World Championship events here in Novi Sad). "Wang was definitely the best player in the world," someone was telling me. "Then they switched him to long pips, took away his game." Took away his game? Wang beat Carlsson 14 and 13. Well, with or without Carlsson’s enthusiasm, what did you expect? Hadn’t the Swedes told the Chinese, "Look, be tough on us. No dumping, please. We don’t like it."
Appelgren, who’d won the recent Swedish Championships over Carlsson 3-0, was one of the reasons Sweden would soon be the #2 team in the world. He lost the #3 match of this tie to the 1978 Chinese Champion, Shi Zhihao, a righty shakehander who was a jumping-jack blocker.
Perhaps when the blond-white Carlsson won the 1st from Cai, the Swedes would tie it up? But then, hanging his free hand up like a squirrel’s paw, young Carlsson snapped at everything given him and lost the 2nd 21-3, then couldn’t get back into it in the 3rd.
Bengtsson, however (what an unexpectedly nice high-toss down-the-line serve he has), did away with Shi in straight games. And Appelgren, recovering from having lost the 2nd game at 21, and repeatedly seeming to catch Wang flat-footed, evened the tie.
China 3--Sweden 3.
Wonder how Japan felt about all this? But of course at this point they hadn’t beaten England yet.
The Carlsson-Shi match was pivotal. At 20-all in the 1st, Shi missed a shot, did a two-step, arm-flail wince of a follow through. "The Chinese never used to show such emotion," one experienced observer next to me said. When at 21-all, Carlsson put one into the net, then failed to return serve--Zhihao’s atta-boy arm flashed up.
At 15-all in the 2nd, Carlsson placed the ball to Shi’s far forehand corner--and the Chinese just quit on it. He was conserving his energy for when he needed it? Down 18-17, Shi made a marvelous down-the-line return of serve. (How many times a week did he practice serve and serve return?) Then he smacked Carlsson’s next serve into the net. But now Carlsson, as if he couldn’t make up his mind about something, served off. Well, what can you do? It just wasn’t his match to win.
Appelgren had to snatch a victory--or the Swedes were out of it.
But, down 9-6, clinched-fist Cai thunder-cracked in a serve and follow ("He’s got the fastest loop I’ve ever seen," said Ricky Seemiller), and (missing a serve, hitting one wildly off, and serving into the net) was soon 17-12 up. Then, as both players repeatedly made errors, Cai (missing two more serves) won the 1st at 16.
In the 2nd, Cai began by missing another serve, netting an easy one, and then, down 6-4, all-out swung at a ball that missed the table by at least a foot. Then he gave The Apple his specially practiced footstamp serve (the sound of course is integral to the new technology of deception--you not only can’t see, you can’t hear which side’s got the anti), only it was a little high and Appelgren smacked it in. At 19-all Cai was safely blocking, lost the point, then missed Appelgren’s serve to lose the game.
One each. I had a splitting headache (especially trying to keep up with what was happening in that drawn-out England-Japan tie) but this was too interesting to leave. Cai won the 1st point of the 3rd game--and went dancing round the court. But then he missed another serve (Wow, how else explain it? Appelgren has to have some of the best serves in the world?), then blocked one too high that Appelgren missed. And so on it went...Cai all-out whooshing one in or outright whiffing...until, down 13-12, he suddenly, dramatically, caught fire, and, shouting self-encouragement, ran an unpredictable 7 in a row to end it all.
After their China tie, the Swedes would lose still another--to a surprising South Korean team (who’d been finishing in a 5-3, 5-4 rush over France and West Germany).
Coming in from the German leagues to join his fellow, more conventional South Koreans was the long-haired antispin defender Park Lee Hee. "There are no characters, no personalities in table tennis anymore," lamented a longtime aficionado--and while I think that assessment’s generally true (even the Chinese mystique seems to be fading away), Park is different. He managed during the Opening Day Parade to quite coolly attach himself not to his own marching teammates but, camera in hand, dressed in casual street clothes, with the U.S. marchers. He said he wanted to get onto the floor to take photos at his own remove--maybe pictures of his teammates, maybe not.
The other South Korean familiar to me because he’s also played in the States (and in many other parts of the world) was Kim Wan. Can you believe he was practicing 4 hours a day while carrying on a full-time 8-hour-a-day job in a textile factory? (Of course my same source said that before important tournaments his working hours were reduced. Just how reduced wasn’t made clear.) Kim had a unique straight-arm backhand jab--a sort of block-drive that ("Yaaah!") came at you like a karate thrust.
With England and Sweden no longer threats, France’s tie with South Korea wasn’t that crucial. Lucky for France. For when not only Martin but the 32-year-old Secretin each lost two matches, their #2 man Birocheau’s heroics against Park and Kim Wan were not enough. "France depends on Birocheau," someone said--and when he couldn’t win his 3rd match from Kim Ki Taek, the tie was over.
"Fifty-sixty percent of this game is mental, has to do with the psyche," Peter Stellwag was saying. Maybe that was why the Germans after leading South Korea 4-0 could still lose 5-4? It didn’t matter enough to them whether they won or lost--so long as they weren’t relegated to Category II? The two Kims beat Wosik; Park and Kim Ki Taek beat the blocking robot Wilfried Lieck; and Park came from behind to beat Stellwag. "Well," said Peter, "I’m going back to school for a few months to continue studying dentistry. I’ll keep playing, keep taking a leave of absence as I’ve been doing. After all, you can’t devote your whole life to table tennis."
Appelgren did his gutsy share against South Korea with victories over Kim Ki Taek (deuce in the 3rd) and Kim Wan (19 in the 3rd), and Bengtsson too beat both Kims--but Carlsson couldn’t win a match. Actually the loss didn’t really matter too much. (Had they won, Sweden still couldn’t have finished 3rd or 4th because the tie would have been broken in favor of England and France.) But Bengtsson’s frustration was evident in his match with Park. Once, Stellan put up his hand to indicate Park had a wet spot on his racket--but Park and the officials didn’t see it that way. Which so incensed Bengtsson that he gave both Park and his bench the finger.
As late as the 6th round all was not lost for France--for if they beat Japan each would have two losses and France would advance via the head-to head tiebreaker to the crossover.
Ono (his game this season in decline because of a knee injury) had no trouble with Martin’s defensive antispin. But then Abe and Ono could not get by the clever Secretin, and Takashima (who’ll soon be 30) was stopped by, first, Birocheau who, up 9-1 in the 1st, 10-4 in the 2nd, looped relentlessly through him, then, in expedite, by Martin. Up 19-15 in the 3rd, the French defender, driven further and further away by Takashima’s attack, made one last, almost unbelievable return from the corners of the barriers as Takashima, having counted to 13, could only stop and stare as the ball came rising, floating beautifully back.
But whatever their problems Japan always did fight hard....And maybe now France lost a little heart? Against Abe, Birocheau dropped the 1st at 19 and lost two straight. Against Takashima, Secretin dropped the 1st at 19 and lost two straight (down 18-16 in the 2nd and missing shot after shot he was shaking his head, smiling in ironic disbelief that this was happening to him, his team).
In the 8th match, Ono was up 8-5, 8-6 on Birocheau while even as he lost the point all the Japanese on the bench were giving him their undivided head-nodding encouragement. "He’s gonna serve a fast one now," said Hilton watching--and Ono did. But Birocheau up close apparently didn’t see what Hilton did from afar--and so 9-6...21-14 out.
By the 9th match it was the French who realized their situation was beginning to look hopeless. After Abe had looped down Martin in the 1st, the Frenchman gave the ball an extra-point kick. In the 2nd, he was back so far to the forehand side of his court lobbing, lobbing that, quick, he had to jump the barriers into the adjacent court--but Abe didn’t quite continue to angle the ball as much as Martin had anticipated and he couldn’t get back in time. Had he stayed where he was, he would have been able to make the return. In anger he swatted the ball into the stands.
Japan’s last tie--with China--was thus a mere formality...unless of course you thought the Japanese could possibly win 1st place. Cai, as if with welcoming Asian politeness, gave up the opener to World Champion Ono, then he and the other Chinese closed out the tie.
What team on the other side, the reader may well wonder, was likely to rise up and extend China?
In Group B, as round after round progressed, it was apparent that Australia and, to a lesser extent, Russian and Italy were the weakest teams. Though the Aussies, who I heard had problems with their players, coaches, and officials, couldn’t do anything with Russia, they did put up a struggle against Italy.
But Massimo Costantini, who plays with inverted Friendship rubber (because of friction problems you can use this rubber only half as long as Japanese rubber?), and Giovanni Bisi, runner-up in the World Student Championship in England last fall (with a win over Kim Wan in the semi’s), were too 3-game strong for Paul Pinkewich, Bob Tuckett, and Rod Carlyle. Maybe the fact that Italy had hired China’s longtime great player Liang Geliang, now a professional in the German leagues, for a month of intense coaching before the Championships made a difference?
Constantini, you may remember, was the fellow Ricky Seemiller beat in the 9th match of the 5-4 tie with Italy at the ‘77 Birmingham World’s that allowed the U.S. to get into Category I. Now he would be beating such world-class stars as Grubba, Gergely, and Kosanovic in the Teams and getting to the last 32 in the Singles.
Nor could Russia, despite finishing with a better won-lost game record, beat Italy. Gone was Gomozkov, the famous Russian player turned coach--to be replaced, believe it or not, by a basketball man, or so I heard ("No wonder they fell from the First Division in the European League," said a voice in my ear. "They don’t have any table tennis programs in Russia."). Anatoly Strokatov, their best player--where was he? Not in Novi Sad. Not after trying earlier in the season to smuggle home too many jeans from Germany. But I must say, although this was a team where one of their players could be down 18-0 to Milan Orlowski, it was never the grim or even sad-looking team I’d seen in the past. Au contraire--they all seemed downright pleased to be part of these Championships. Wouldn’t that be enough to keep them in Category I?
As early as the 2nd round it was obvious that Poland was going to be the "sleeper" team of the tournament. How was it possible that this country, with all its internal problems, that in 1975 in Calcutta had 5-4 kept us out of Category I, had now developed into, as someone said, "a table tennis nation"?
Perhaps it was easier to explain how they had Defending Champion Hungary down 4-1.
Andrzej Grubba, the 23-year-old, two-time Polish Champion, who last September won the World Student Championship, sent, first, Jonyer (9, 14) then Klampar (19, 19) for a loop with his own unremitting two-winged topspin. And 21-year-old Leszek Kucharski, with an even better backhand loop than Grubba’s, downed not only Gergely (but, oh, temper, temper, did he crush that barrier after losing the 2nd game at deuce), but, with more quick-covering loops and rocket-arcing lobs and counters, Jonyer. The ‘75 World Champ was getting too fat, not to say prosperous, from working at his newly opened sporting goods store in Budapest.
Stephen Dryszel, the #3 Pole, however, could not beat Gergely and Klampar, so that made it Poland 4--Hungary 2.
At which point poor Klampar, who was still trying to get himself together after an appendectomy only a month earlier, managed to score only 9 points in the 1st game. Then, though, the droopy-looking Hungarian, who before his operation had won the European Top 12 tournament, made his move. I’d read somewhere that the Hungarians (like the Chinese?) sometimes practiced to lose games so as to improve their concentration--and while I wouldn’t suggest that’s what happened here, Klampar’s concentration did improve and he won the next two games.
In the 8th match, Gergely (Had his fuzzy hair always been styled by his beautician wife? Who would ask such a question at such a time?) curled counter-topsin at Grubba until it had all been settled and he’d won.
The anticipated problem for the Hungarian team was that Jonyer with his bad knee wouldn’t be able to play match after match.
Maybe so--but right now he’d better be able to play this 9th one against Dryszel. And with much fanfare from the flag-waving Hungarians in the house he did come through.
The 3rd round natch between Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia had even more drama.
Dragutin Surbek of course was playing. Now at 34 he had already represented his country 403 times and was playing in his 9th World Championships. A national sports hero, he was given a special place of honor in the Opening Day Parade.
At a time when there was an increasing conflict between Associations who wanted their best players to go to training camps as well as play matches (but who didn’t want to pay them or pay them much for doing this) and club owners who wanted these same players contracted to them to give them their money’s worth, Surbek set a standard for others. In the German Bundesliga he was reportedly making 75-000-80,00 marks a year (roughly $40,000), on which he paid no taxes and could live very well in Yugoslavia. When he went to a tournament, he got guaranteed traveling expenses, 1,000 marks appearance money, and at least some pocket money.
Because of him the German leagues began offering better contracts, and local tournaments began offering more prize money. As a result, the German leagues became so inundated with foreign players who hoped to make a living at the sport that recently the German Association has had to be more restrictive regarding them.
Surbek then the Yugoslavs had, but who else to play against the strongly balanced Czech team?
Well, since the Czechs were notoriously bad against chop--the more so it was hoped before 6,000 screaming, wildly partisan fans--the Yugoslavs had Bela Mesaros, a long-pips defensive star.
But who would the other player be? Zoran ("Zoki") Kosanovic, #1 in North America, who’d been training in Yugoslavia--overtraining, some said--since early January? No, not for this tie. Shortly before the action was to begin, he tripped climbing over a spectator’s floor chair, fell, landed on his neck and almost slashed his jugular vein. Given his condition, how could he play?
Zoran Kalinic, the current Yugoslav Champ--a penholder who had the distinction of being the tallest player in the tournament--how about him?
Or Karakasevic, another penholder with more experience, who, two years ago when a Chinese coach suddenly appeared in Novi Sad, came out of retirement to recently got to the semi’s of the Czech Open--maybe he’d be picked?
Dusan "Dule" Osmanagic, the Yugoslav Captain, finally opted for Karakasevic. Surbek, Mesaros, Karakasevic--certainly they presented a variety of styles to go against the seeming sameness of the Czechs.
And, sure enough, although Mesaros’s backhand pips didn’t bother Orlowski they did Josef Dvoracek. Had him even talking to himself. Yet the Czech came round the table smiling, hand outstretched--as if he was as pleased as the cheering crowd ("YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!...YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!") that he’d lost this match.
Surbek beat Jindrich Pansky after a struggle, then lost to Orlowski--which, according to Yugoslav convention, brought thousands of boos and whistles.
When Karakasevic lost in straight games to both Dvoracek and Pansky, Yugoslavia was down 4-2.
Sure bet, though, Surbeck ("SURE-BECK!...SURE-BECK!") wasn’t going to be the last to disappoint that throng.
Karakasevic, after losing his 5th straight game in this tie, was a goner? Nope. He knew Orlowski preferred to loop from angled-off blocks so he patiently kept ball after ball to the Czech’s middle, forcing him not to loop but to block the ball and so getting him into an up-to-the-table exchange that favored Karakasevic. Up 14-13 in the 3rd, Orlowski lobbed a ball back that only Orlowski and the Czechs said hit the side. "Down--it went down" motioned Karakasevic with an appropriate "You know I wouldn’t cheat you" expression on his face. This seemed to unnerve Orlowski, for he lost four in a row before steadying to get them all back. Finally the emotional Karakasevic prevailed 23-21. "YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!...YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!...YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!"
The Czechs began to realize their victory had slipped away. Down 1-0 and 19-16 in the 2nd to Mesaros, Pansky, on losing another point, spun his his racket up in frustration. Soon it was "BAY-LUH!...BAY-LUH!" Then people were patting--no, pounding--him with congratulations.
"Pansky should have won," said one observer. "He should have hit on both wings, should have brought Mesaros in and out, then hit him in the middle. He just didn’t know how to play him."
In the next round, Hungary seemed to 5-2 knock the Czechs out of contention. Tibor Kreisz, the Hungarian chopper, who later in the singles was to have his 1st-round opponent down 20-1 in the 1st, 20-2 in the 2nd, was strategically in the line-up not only to give Jonyer a rest but (with black Tackiness on the forehand) to do to the Czechs what the Yugoslav chopper Mesaros had done before him--that is, come through with two big matches.
He started off by beating Pansky 26-24 in the 3rd--a fists-up match which, coupled with his win over Orlowski, dramatically swung the tie toward the Hungarians. True, Gergely, in losing to Orlowski and Dvoracek, might just as well have gone back to the penholder style of his early youth. But fast-recuperating Klampar, in doing away with the whole Czech team, showed that in this tie at least no one need worry if he had his game stitched together.
The Hungarians, someone was telling me (and unless my ears deceived me, other Europeans too--Dvoracek, for example), took the rubber off their highly varnished bats after every single match, applied fresh glue, then put the same rubber back on. Why did they do that? Not just for the new sound, but the new zip.
Earlier, the Czechs had gotten by the North Koreans who, without the psychic adulation of those thousands of supporters, weren’t as effective here as they’d been in Pyongyang. Downing the hulking Dvoracek, however, was Cho Yong Ho, who I remember seeing flattened out on a hallway table receiving a hurried massage just before he had to go hustling off for a match. Cho, by the way, was the only North Korean to win matches against contending teams. In addition to downing Dvoracek, he also beat Kosanovic and Karakasevic, Jonyer and Gergely.
As 6th-round play began, it was clear that the Yugoslav-Poland match was crucial--especially for the Yugoslavs, for they still had to play an ever-improving Hungary and they were underdogs in that tie. Yugoslavia decided to go with Surbek, Karakasevic, and Mesaros. Why change a winner? And Poland? Well, forget their reserves--it was as if they didn’t have any. They played the same players in every single tie: Grubba, Kucharski, Dryszek.
Kucharski, who’s got a nice wrist-snap return of service, opened against Mesaros and looped him 14, 13 silly. Among the data handed out by the pressmen was the statement that the Pole’s trainer was...Magda Kucharski. (His mother was his trainer?)
Next up: Dryszel and Surbek (How at his age does Surbek keep fighting all the time?" someone naively asked). The 6,000-strong spectators interrupted this match to express their disapproval at seeing Kucharski warming-up Grubba on a nearby table. When Dryszel won 2-0, the Yugoslav National Hero was roundly booed, whistled, and jeered at. Of course against even the weakest teams he wasn’t able to sit out. Imagine a Yugoslav buying a ticket for a match and not getting to see Surbek. Unthinkable.
Maybe the little bit of practice Grubba got before the officials broke it up helped--for in the 3rd match he looped away the always intense Karakasevic, 10 and 14.
A number of years ago in Jamaica Karakasevic had told me--maybe after too many despairing moments like this last one against Grubba--that his kids were never gonna play ping-pong. No, he was going to get them interested in tennis.
Right now, though, disaster was befalling all Yugoslavia. Poland 3--Yugoslavia 0.
But Surbek, with some beautiful placements, fought back. After he won the 1st from Kucharski at 19, the 2nd--"SURE-BECK!...SURE-BECK!"--was easy.
The next match, though, was a killer. Grubba, looking very upset, got only 12 the 1st game, couldn’t get the hang of Mesaros’s racket. But then he began getting topspin after topspin in--and when in the 2nd Mesaros couldn’t chop him down or mix him up at deuce, the 3rd game was already lost. "How," somebody said, "did Poland get this good?" Poland 4--Yugoslavia 1.
But now as hot as Dryszel had been against Surbek so as cold was he against Karakasevic.
Would Surbek then be the one to lose the last point? Not on your life. Or, rather, not on his.
Is the pattern beginning to sound familiar? Yugoslavia, you’ll recall, was down 4-2 to Czechoslovakia. And then Surbek won. And then it was Karakasevic’s turn--and he won in the 3rd.
Once again, Karakasevic was in trouble. He’d lost the 1st to Kucharski and was going down to the wire in the 2nd. In fact, jogging round the court, hopping over barriers after balls, he seemed wired himself. But, caught blocking at the end from as much as 10 feet back, he just held on to win at 19. Now he was really wired. Opened up the 3rd swinging, bobbing like a fighter, and got a 4-0 lead. Then excited, lost it. Once, hurrying back to the table, he served, it seemed almost before he got there. Crazy. Down 13-11, he banged in his penholder forehand and when he saw the return wasn’t going to hit, he put his head down, spun around, and throwing up his hands, jogged benchward, then circled back to play.
And play he did...up to 19-11. But then he lost all 5 on his serve. And, gulp, at 19-18, failed to return serve. At this point, though, Kucharski made an error and it broke the spell. As Karakasevic won the next point and the match, both players just sort of wilted to the floor. "YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!...YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!...YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!"
Karakasevic came off court and collapsed, momentarily cramping, into a throng of well-wishers. But a few seconds later up went his hand acknowledging that he was alright. For this he came back to table tennis. For this could he say later when I asked him if his kids were playing tennis, "No, they’re playing table tennis."
Yuigoslavia 4-Poland 4.
"BAY-LUH!...BAY-LUH!"
Mesaros vs. Dryszel--and of course everybody, and I do mean 6,000 everybody (where, oh where, was Wide World of Sports?) was caught up in another Yugoslav comeback. Could Mesaros do it again?
In the 1st, the Yugoslav was down 15-11...20-19, but deuced it when Dryszel started to go for the winner, changed his mind, indecisively made a half-stroke, lost the point, and in a moment the game.
"YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!...YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!" The stretched out syllables sounded like thunderclaps. It was wide-world wonderful. From far-up in the 3rd tier of the stadium a hat came spiraling down.
In the 2nd game, Dryszel came out rolling and pushing--and for a moment I wondered if the match could possibly go expedite. But then in some rhythm-destroying sequence Dryszel pulled ahead 11-6, then saw Mesaros rally to 11-10. At which turning point the Yugoslav missed a 1-2 backhand flick and forehand follow through for a winner--and after that was no longer in the game.
In the 3rd, up 6-4, Mesaros retrieved a ball by the barriers--and stopped, just stopped, to listen to his coach. Then lost 5 in a row. Then got very lucky when Dryszel missed two hangers. At 9-all, after "YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!...YU-GO-SLAH-VIA!" and with the ball again in play, there was such an amazing stillness. But not for long. Mesaros, back, back, made repeated 20-foor returns, then picked a perfect forehand. But up 12-10 he served off.
And so the play went--just as Mesaros had climbed with Pansky--right up to the end. Down 20-18, the Yugoslav rallied. Down 21-20, he climaxed a would-it-never-end point with a spectacular angled-off placement. Followed that by getting the ad. Then, as the crowd was delirious with sound and silence, he almost immediately pushed one into the net. Ohhh....The only groans that were worse came two points later.
Out rushed the Poles to embrace Dryszel and fling him up into the net of their arms. Off they carried him--a smiling, awkward-looking acrobat, but one who had soared. Deserving heroes they all were--this team that had they not beaten Denmark 5-4 in the final crossover at Pyongyang would not even have been in Category I at Novi Sad!
Said one longtime observer, "Kalinic should have played against Poland. It was a mistake to select a defensive type like Mesaros. The Yugoslavs tried to play it too safe. They figured that if Mesaros and Karakasevic could just win one, their team was a winner. No way, they thought, that before 6,000 people Surbek could lose a match."
But Surbek, like anyone else of course, could lose. And now the disappointed Yugoslav team was anything but a favorite to make the crossover. In their 7th tie against undefeated Hungary, they were blanked.
Who then would finish second? Poland with only one loss? No. Because, backing in, in the 7th tie, with a 5-1 win over Poland, was the solid, well-balanced Czech team. In giving the Poles their second loss, they created a 3-way Poland-Yugoslavia-Czechoslovakia tie-breaker that in games won and lost was--no contest--broken in the Czech’s favor.
How anticlimactic it all was.
Well, there were still all the crossover ties--but not for me to report on here. Yugoslavia did defeat Poland 5-4 for 7th as opposed to 8th place--but I didn’t and I suspect even the Yugoslavs didn’t much care. The only other 5-4 tie was South Korea over North Korea--for 10th place. That one the players definitely cared about though--and, however it was edited, would have to be Page 1 news in the Korean papers back home.
Two-two the two-Koreas tie was--after which all five remaining matches went three games. There, against Hong Sun Chol, was Kim Wan who next season would be playing some for Nisse Sandberg’s Angby Club in Sweden (and perhaps working a reduced shift at a nearby textile factory?). He was fast-snap backhanding-in points, throwing up his hands, jogging around in a circle, shouting "Yaaah!" and "Oosha!" "That ball hit, didn’t it?" motioned Hong. "No," said the umpire (finally a good one). "That ball hit, didn’t it?" motioned Kim. "No," said the umpire. As Hong would swing through the ball, Kim would swing to counter it. They played as in mirrors--in a strange Asian union.
When Hong won the match , the North Koreans were up 4-2.
And yet the South Koreans came back to win it. In the 9th match, it was Kim Ki Taek vs. Hong. After Kim had won the 1st game on a 20-18 serve and follow, the North Korean coach showed something in his large notebook to Hong. Maybe it helped. On into the 3rd they went with Hong up 10-5 at the turn. But Kim caught him at 16-all with two superb down-the-line block placements. Up 19-18, the South Korean looked to his coach for a signal, got one, served--and Hong failed to return it. In a moment it was over--the South had won. Not the World Championships, but something like it. A final before the final.
In the crossovers that would decide the first two places, Hungary beat Japan 5-1 and China beat Czechoslovakia 5-0--both foregone conclusions. So, appropriately enough, that left both Hungary and China to defend their 1979 positions.
"It will not take us 27 years to gain back the title," Coach Li Furong had said in Pyongyang after the Chinese had lost to the Hungarians.
Oh? How long then?
Just before this tie was played, one close to the Hungarians who I’d see every two years at these Championships was saying very confidentially to me, "The final score will be 5-1." Of course he didn’t say who would win--and I didn’t think it appropriate to ask.
There was some speculation about who the Chinese would play. Someone said the Chinese team leaders rated Li Zhenshi #1 (he would eventually win the Men’s Doubles with Cai) and Wang Huijuan #2. But of course Li wasn’t on the team, so not even the Chinese leaders could get him to play. As for Wang, they’d ruined his game, hadn’t they?
"I can’t believe they’ll play Guo Yuehua," said another. "They’ve got to be saving him. Nobody’s seen him, nobody knows what he can do. He’s only played one match--against Indonesia." (Actually, if I can believe the truth of the photostated match results I’m looking at, Guo had played in two ties--against South Korean and England.") "I’ll tell you one thing," said another wisely, "they won’t play a chopper."
No, China didn’t play a chopper--they didn’t have one on the team. Quite unmysteriously they played the same three players they’d started out with in their first tie against France and ended with in their 7th tie against Japan and in the crossover against Czechoslovakia--Shi Zhihao, Cai Zhenhua, and Xie Saike.
First off was 23-year-old Shi Zhihao, a long-pips, righty shakehander, against Jonyer. In the semi’s of the Italian Open last fall he’d beaten the Hungarian 7, 10, and 14. Whatever that means. Now, though, Jonyer was very carefully checking out the ball, spinning it over and over again--as if maybe that had been the trouble in Venice, he’d had a bad one.
No sooner was Jonyer up 8-6 though than he was down 11-8. Shi was blocking that vaunted Hungarian loop so short that the ball would double bounce. At 13-all Coach Berczik began shouting something at Jonyer. (Berczik had a reputation of being very good at getting his players--especially Jonyer--to peak at just the right time.) Some of the spectators were shouting too, or rather whistling--a TV camera had moved in to block them and they couldn’t see what was happening. Down 15-14, Shi served into the net. Down 16-14, Shi failed to return Jonyer’s serve. And now Jonyer finished with some very impressive wind-up loops. Could he have played like this in Venice?
In the 2nd, Jonyer was up 20-18 match point, but Shi caught him. Ad up, Jonyer pushed Shi’s serve into the net. But then the Hungarian steadied, socked in two winners. He was so happpy he swatted the ball out of the court. In a flash, Berczik scattered those about him and hurried over the barriers to retrieve it.
Now it was 28-year-old Klampar against another Chinese shakehander, 20-year-old Cai Zhenhua, who began by dancing round the court after every point--or at least until Klampar had shown him that he, Klampar, couldn’t handle Cai’s serve and the Chinese was up 1-0 and, no problem, 14-7 in the 2nd.
In the 3rd match, 28-year-old Gergely faced 19-year-old Xie Saike (pronounced Tshe Psyche). A lefty, pips-out looper--"a penholder of the Chinese School as opposed to the Japanese School," someone said. But to me his grip, the angle of his racket at the ready, looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. I thought him the most "exotic" of the Chinese, most of whom--the people, what they wore, the players, their styles--were getting to look like everyone else.
Some were calling Xie, who won the 1st game at 17, "the new Li Zhenshi"--but he could not only bullet a ball (as Li must have often done in winning the Asian-African-and Latin American Games last fall), he had a pips-out loop that you had to be careful not to block into the net.
In the 2nd game, from 20-all, Geregely was quite amazing. He made a really far-out counter, followed with a fist-up jump. Then he whiffed Xie’s fast deep serve. "The Chinese were not using high-toss serves anymore," someone tried to explain to me, "because they’d go too deep and the Hungarians would loop them away." Again Gergely got the ad and again Xie got him on a fast deep serve and follow. But now Gergely went ahead and wound up a winner.
In the 3rd, Xie was up 7-2 but Gergely made some fantastic, seemingly-out-of-the-point counters to go ahead 11-9....Then it was all over, wasn’t it? Xie was up 19-14....But, surprise, Gergely, picking up steam (as if ever mindful of representing the famous Budapest Railway Workers Sports Club), came in a rush, and at 19-all got lucky with a net that, quick as Xie is, he couldn’t get. Lunging, he whirled and whirled and fell down into a sitting position facing Gergely.
But then, as if this were a magic charm he’d just spun out, Saike somehow was saved. Gergely worked for and took the right shot--but, agonizingly, it just missed. Game and match eventually to the Chinese.
Berczik opened his notebook, wrote one word, snapped it shut.
In the 4th match, Zhi was out there dancing his clockwise or counter-clockwise little steps. Perhaps his opponent Klampar was mindful of the time not too long ago (in the semi’s of the Yugoslav Open) when he’d beaten the Hungarian 3-0? But, o.k., two of those games were close, and the casual-looking Klampar with his double-jointed, stiff-arm stroke and his last-second wrist-snap backhand was, after all, Europe’s best. Match to stay-at-the-table Klampar, 10 in the 3rd. Hungary 2--China 2. Oh, if that ad-up ball of Gergely’s had only hit.
Xie, I’d heard it said, was very good against fast attackers but not so good against slow loopers. Perhaps Jonyer was slow enough? But down 1-0 and 20-19 in the 2nd, the Hungarian tried a fast counter and it missed.
In the 6th match, Cai and Gergely were locked into another big swing game. At 12-all in the 3rd, Gergely missed Cai’s serve and for a moment faltered. But up 15-12, Cai tried to hit in Gergely’s serve and did a very bad job of it, then lofted a sitter of a lob (which Gergely crunched), then made a bad block into the net. 15-all.
"I’ve never seen the Chinese so nervous," said one of the world’s most promising young players. But, incredibly, it was Gergely who now 1-2-3-4-5 times failed to return Cai’s serve. Who’d seen the like of that before? (Well, not counting Huang Liang at Birmingham.)
In the 7th and final match, Klampar tried of course, but the Chinese Saike was too much.
So now what did everyone make of the fact that China was once again the Men’s Team Champion?
All the Hungarians, I was told, were going back immediately after the World’s to train. Or maybe it was going back by train to each of their afternoon worlds. Anyway, veterans as they all were, they weren’t giving up, they’d be around in ‘83.
"The European teams are getting older. They need to be quicker, need to play closer to the table"--that was one assessment.
Another coming from a longtime World Championship goer was full of surprise. "The Chinese have changed their whole school of play. They used to have a great winning style."
Still another felt that the Chinese were so good that they’d deliberately made some of the matches close.
Which drew from one bearded fellow with a camera eye the following reply (and you can hear the irony, the mild sarcasm in this voice?). "Really," he said, "with you it’s either a dump or a lock. The Chinese are never supposed to lose, huh?"
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