North American Teams Championships

Baltimore, Maryland · November 24-26, 2000 · by Tim Boggan

L-R: The Championship Hungarian Team: Zoltan Varga, Fan Yi Yong and Ferenc Pazsy. Photos copyright 2000 by John Oros.

 

Ah, the first Thanksgiving of the new millennium.

So did Richard Lee’s well-organized, third annual North American Teams Championships at the Baltimore Convention Center offer a weekend of synergistic stimulation we can all be thankful for?

Believe it. Believe it certainly for this year’s winning father-coach/son-player Varga-led Hungarian team who, after victories in ‘96 and ‘97, had been disappointed with the controversial finishes that followed. The Sichuan Men’s team, holders of the last two Championships, did not defend their title, but a team headed by China’s former World and Olympic Doubles Champion Chen Longcan proved a formidable runner-up.

Teams aplenty there were in this Butterfly-sponsored tournament – 190 showed – which meant that for three days hundreds of players, age 5 to 80, enjoyed exhausting themselves against one another on tables that for the best of the best courted Taraflex red-carpet relief from the punishing concrete. Fortifying NATC President Lee for uncomplaining hours at his Tournament Control Bastion were Co-Directors Fong Hsu (helped by computer director Zachary Sng) and Alan Williams (playfully informative at the mike). Registration Director Wendy Troy was omnipresent pleasant and patient, and Azmy Ibrahim as Chief Referee and Dick Evans as his Assistant, aware of the scarcity of U.S. and Canadian umpires, were always reliably on call. What Canadian umpires there were, I might add, were dressed not in tailored red blazers reserved exclusively for CTTA International Umpires but in matching casual windbreaker-like jackets. "National umpires? They looked like truck drivers," said one outspoken U.S. critic.

Alan Williams shared Publicity responsibility with brother Dave, and after a local reporter had come round for a story, USATT President Sheri Pittman, in fashionable cream-colored pants suit collared by a U.S.-China button, obliged with a TV interview. Diplomacy was further spotlighted at the generous Saturday night reception for Presidents Pittman and Lee, those attending in their role as USATT Board members, Dennis Taylor and Barney Reed, and all the hard-working tournament staff, including the many volunteers. Our hosts were representatives of the Washington-Baltimore 2012 Olympic Coalition, who of course are hoping to bring a bigger event – the Olympic Games – to their proven sports-minded area.

For the moment, though, at least for me, this 141-table tournament was big enough, and I’d best move on to the other players in this three-day drama. Bidding to advance on Friday to a level they’d feel comfortably competitive at for the Saturday-Sunday weekend were 186 teams (4 teams were seeded out). On being carefully placed according to a snake-system variant based on the ratings of their three top players, each of these teams began modified round robin play, best 5 of 9 matches, in 16 Preliminary Groups. After Friday’s competition, these teams would be sorted into alphabetized Classes, and the winners of the 16 Groups would then join the four top-seeded teams – CWT (an acronym for players playing in leagues in Japan – Wang Yunggang, Akira Takashi, and Chen Longcan); Hungary (Fan Yi Yong, Zoltan Varga, and Ferenc Pazsy); American Allstars (Cheng Yinghua, David Zhuang, Todd Sweeris, and Chang Jun Gao); and the Landau team from Germany (Dana Weber, Robert Gardos, and Sanada Koji). Only these 20 Class A teams would have a chance – theoretically have a chance – of winning the $6,000 first prize, the $2,400 runner-up prize, and the $1,200 semifinalists’ prize.

Left: The runner-up CWT Team - Akira Takashi, Chen Longcan and Wang Yunggang. Photo copyright 2000 by John Oros.

A bone of contention that would surface in this tournament – a tournament that some observers viewed as more important than our Vegas National’s because of the presence of high-quality foreign players, professionals who make their living at the Sport – was the displacement of prize money heretofore given to the 5th and 6th-place finishers; $500 was now being given to the wining team in both the B’s and C’s. This, I think, is wrong, for it not only rewards mediocrity at the expense of excellence, it offers – what can’t happen in any of the other prize money events – an incentive to teams, to players capable of advancing to Class A but who have no chance to win prize money there – to deliberately or half-heartedly dump matches.

Obviously it’s the top competitors that everyone wants to watch. Indeed, any player who intended to bring a guest to the final had to purchase a $5 ticket. But of course, as we’ll see, it was worth it. And so were other matches among the top-seeded teams. The players who are most serious and most skilled should be rewarded, especially when they make the effort to come here from foreign shores and give domestic spectators the enjoyment of seeing their all-out seriousness and high-spirited intensity.

I hasten to say, though, that the tournament did preserve its lighter touches among the masses, as it should. The "Boo’s Brothers," though minus Pete May and Jim McQueen, seemed no whit subdued this year, even picked up a Sister. Other undignified teams, or, rather, team names, some in good-for-a-chuckle, subtle and not so subtle poor taste (rivaling with harmless wit Jim Williams’s perennial appearance: "Asgard"-woven shirt, horned helmet, and "Return to Sender" hammer), were Big Momma and the Boy, Team Big Balls, Four Play, Gluebox 40, The Feminine Touch, Jan’s Olive, and Three Guys and a Girl (the three guys on this team – whose real team name had been censored – of four were not blundering dunces of course, but they did have an unimpressive 5076 rating – X Class to the censorious).

Among the 16 placed A players, there were only two mild upsets and these were where, as the snake system coiled back on itself in Preliminary Groups 16 and 14, you might expect them to be. NY TTC #1 (Liu Hui Yuan, Alex Tam, and Vitaly Koretsky) downed the Canadian Junior Boys (Winnipeg’s Pierre-Luc Hinse, and Montrealers Ignacio Cabrera and David Ramdeen) 5-2. Liu carried the banner for his Queens Club with 3 wins. And the legendary Tam added 2 more, setting an example for youth and for whatever tobacco company name you’d care to cough up. Moving fast toward 60, Alex hustled around the court, then puffed far more contentedly off it than on. But, no need to sweat, both the winners and the losers here would each get $500, since the NY team would take the Senior prize, and the Canadian Junior Boys would go on to win the B’s.

Also 5-2 failing to advance was last year’s Class B runner-up team, Mid-America (led by 2364-rated Bogdan Lewandowski and supported by Paul Pashuku, Mark Nordby, and Richard Hicks). Mexico B (Carlos Chiu, Olmo Zavalo, Rafael Mendez, and Sergio Blanco) beat them – largely because Pashuku and Nordby couldn’t will quick adjustments to Zavalo and Mendez’s jumping-bean serves. Perhaps because Mark won a gutsy 19 in the 3rd match against Chiu, and Hicks got by Zavala in 3, Mid-America remained unimpressed. "This team won’t win a match tomorrow" was their consensus. (But they were fooled the more – on Saturday, in their 5-team round robin, Mexico B was 2 and 20).

In Group 1, the CWT team didn’t lose a match. Not only is 1985 World runner-up Chen Longcan playing professionally in Japan, but so are Wang and Takashi – Chen in an Association-approved league, and Wang and Takashi in a "renegade" one, promoted by an enthusiast who’s enlisted such world-class players as Jorgen Persson and Kim Taek Soo, both of whom it was said that penholder Wang had recently beaten.

Wang, I’d heard, had been coached by Kong Linghui’s father. As for Chen Longcan, the quick story was he’d gone to a table tennis boarding school at 8, was on the Sichuan Province team at 13, and away from home almost for good at 15. Among the doubles successes he valued was his win at the ‘87 China National Games with his friend Cheng Yinghua. He was and still is one of the revered players of his time. No surprise then, as Bruce Liu was telling me, that at a Chinese restaurant here in Baltimore a waiter recognized him, and personally bought him red wine. Naturally, too, he and his party were given special dishes not on the menu and invited to smoke in an available non-smoking room. Now that Chen’s playing days are almost over, he expects to coach a top girl’s team in Japan.

No reason of course for all the other teams in this CWT-dominated Group to give up, since the second-place finisher would also advance to the single-elimination quarter’s. However, as only Liu Hui Yuan would win scattered matches for the aging N.Y. Club, they never challenged. And when right away the USA Junior Men (Keith Alban, Mark Hazinski, and Han Xiao) fell 5-0 in their opening match against the Top Canadian Men (Bence Csaba, Xavier Therien, and Faazil Kassam), advancement wasn’t possible for them either – though they, too, were awarded $500 as the top Junior Boys. Later in the afternoon, after they led Jerry Wartski’s Manhattan (99th & Broadway) Club players (Atanda Musa, Abass Ekun, and Renata Peluchova) 3-1, Alban, current U.S. Boys’ High School Singles and Doubles Champion, had to settle for just two wins when he couldn’t get the 3rd game from Musa, and Manhattan ran the tie out.

The all important match-up in this Group was the 11:00 a.m. one between the N.Y. Manhattan Club players and the Top Canadian Men. Young Csaba’s father, who is now the Canadian Junior Development Coach, was born in Canada but grew up in Hungary and so has ties there. Bence lived there too for some time, took advantage of the coaching available, and became good enough to play in Hungary’s 1st Division League. After opening with straight game success against Abass, Bence’s 4th match was key – a 19, 24 (after being up 20-16 match point) squeaker over "Mansa" Musa, best remembered in the U.S. for leading his Nigerian Skypower team to a succession of U. S. Open Team Championships in the early ‘80s.

Abass, under the watchful eye of his heretofore London-based brother Waheed, who’d earlier coached both him and Musa and had been the Nigerian Coach at the ‘91 Chiba, Japan World’s, tried to stop the bleeding. But Therien, whose win over Ekun gave the Canadians a 4-1 lead, was just too focused. Canada’s many-time National Champion and longtime International Coach Mariann Domonkos was telling me how when Xavier was young and his father was driving him to a tournament they used to play chess together – without a board.

The Wartski team would not go down so easily though. Renata Peluchova had learned the game in her native Czechoslovakia, and on maturing had played in both the first and second division of the Bundesliga. Since she was ridiculously underrated here in the States (2100), her win over 2419-rated Kassam was not that surprising. After all, five years ago, she was ITTF-ranked among the hundred best women in the world. Musa then continued to save the day by getting the better of Therien, 18 in the 3rd. (No mean feat, for later how heroically, how joyously, Xavier played against Wang Yunggang and Chen Longcan.) Now if Peluchova could possibly beat Csaba....She won the first! But Manhattan’s skyscraper hopes were soon so clouded over that by early afternoon there was no visibility left even for the Imagination.

In Group 1B, Hungary didn’t lose a match. The last rating I’d seen for Fan was three issues of our magazine ago – 2843, not bad. But how inactive am I supposed to believe he’s been? As for Varga, with no results to show in 6 months, he’s stuck in the ITTF Rankings – at World # 138. So Paszy’s the one to watch out for? In ‘97 at Cobo Hall he wore a hoop earring; now he had that, or another ring, on the forefinger of his left playing hand. Which – and here’s the rub – might oddly be helping his stroke, since in the last three years he’s gone from World #177 to World #88.

Hapless Mexico B I’ve already conceded just two matches to – so, for the second-place laurel leaf, that leaves three contenders: Senoda (John Onifade, Sean O’Neill, Danny Seemiller, and Dave Sakai), the Top Canadian Women (Chris Xu, Wen Xiao Wang, and Petra Cada), and Maccabi USA (Razvan Cretu, Idan Levi, Eyal Adini, and Barry Dattel).

In their 9:00 a.m. opening match, the higher-rated Canadian women topped the Maccabi men, 5-3, despite giving up six straight games to former U.S. World Team Member Cretu. "My touch is always there," said Razvan, who feels, even as I hear he’s started a limousine service, that he has to lose maybe 20 pounds if he’s to hope to play again for the U.S. abroad. In the absence of any funded USA Women’s Team here, the Canadian women won the $1200 prize. They like this tournament, for they say that playing against men forces them to try to sharpen their attack. Not that they’re lax otherwise, what with five days a week training in Ottawa and mandatory Canada Cup Matches for anyone hoping to make their World Team. Top players attend three of these weekend Cup competitions a season that feature mixed men and women singles and doubles in franchised 10-team League play, followed by Knockout matches.

Neither the Canadian women nor the Maccabi men were strong enough to beat the second-place finishers, Senoda. Former U.S. Open and Closed Champ Eric Boggan, now 37, was supposed to come out of retirement as he did last year to join this Senoda team, but, just a few days before, his back went out, and though his picture was on the cover of the Program and though his would-be teammates tried repeatedly to persuade him just to come and socialize, he never did appear in person. Against the Top Canadian Women (excluding World #24 Geng Lijuan who was in Brazil, still playing with the 38mm ball, helping her Club win a League Championship), Seemiller took three, and Onifade and O’Neill, though having absented themselves from the tournament scene in recent years, each contributed a win. John was getting an introduction to the 40mm ball, and, as Sean was saying, with less spin and more time to assess it, placement had taken on greater importance. Stay closer to the table, John, was the advice given him – the ball’s not coming out as much; and be ready, everything’s coming back. Against Maccabi USA, Onifade, who in ‘89 had represented North America at the World Cup in Nairobi, lost to both Cretu and Dattel, but Seemiller again won three, and O’Neill, though losing to Razvan, added the necessary clinchers.

In Group 1C, both the American Allstars and the presumed next best team in the field, Slovakia (Erik Illas, Patrik Marek, Grezo Martin, and Jaromir Truksa), would dominate the round robin prepatory to playing one another in the last tie of the evening.

Meanwhile, Atlanta (Barney J. Reed, Lee McCool, and Michelle Do) opened with a tie-testing 5-3 win over Anti-Charrue (Jean-Francois Roussy, his sister Marie-Christine Roussy, and Mathieu Raymond). This Canadian team the day before had beaten, among others, the Atlanta Dawgs (Michael Liu, John Mar, Robert Andersson, and Philip Mar), whose doggedness would eventually win them the $500 C’s. Although Reed won an important two matches against Anti-Charrue, McCool was the hero, as Marie-Christine Roussy, who’d represented Canada at the 2000 Kuala Lumpur World’s, was the heroine. Having gotten by M-C’s brother, 19 in the 3rd, Lee rallied to win the tie-deciding 8th match from M-C herself, 23-21 in the 3rd. Earlier, the Roussy girl had upset Barney, if upset it was, for Lee said that with the big ball the Canadian, mentally strong, played 150 points better than her current 2399 rating and that he couldn’t spin through her anti block and hit game. So how finally did he beat her? By giving her short, heavy underspin serves and keeping his cool with helpful visualization techniques.

The Anti-Charrue team did take the measure of M-I II (Paul David, Tahl Leibovitz, Sharad Pandit, and Reynaldo Perez), 5-2 – with the Roussy siblings each having to give up a match to Pandit, who’d left India in the late ‘80’s to play for pay in the German leagues, then in ‘92 played a season in England, for Liverpool, and is now a doctor living in Philadelphia. In his 11:00 tie, Sharad, pleased that with the larger ball he has more time to attack with his pips, not only won a nice match from the very experienced Slovakian player Patrik Marek but had 3-time U.S. Champion David Zhuang 1-0 and 17-14 before losing.

M-I II had its lone success with Atlanta, 5-4. At the end of the 6th match, David, Pandit, and Friday night’s $300 Hardbat Champion Perez had each posted a win, while Reed had scored twice and Lee once to tie it up at 3-all. Then, however, Barney couldn’t continue – the forefinger of his racket hand had severely cramped and he was finished for the day. "My own fault," he said. "Poor preparation – I just didn’t have enough liquids." McCool again tied the tie by beating Perez. But though Do was game to the 21-19 second-game end, she was unsuccessful in attacking David’s last two underspin serves.

That left the undefeated Allstars to battle undefeated Slovakia, semifinalists in ‘93 and ‘94 when the Team Championships were in Detroit. The winner of course would have a more favorable position in the quarter’s – more important this year since there’d be no prize money for 5th-6th.

World #109 Zhuang opened against World #157 Illas, who’d earlier stumbled against our Barney Reed. Frank Chang, Jun’s husband, volunteered to umpire, and, though Jun was playing this tie, Slovakia sportingly didn’t object. Sweeris had hurt his shoulder playing Cheng Yinghua in a recent tournament, and while he wanted to be out there on court ("I don’t watch very well"), he decided that with the National’s so near he’d better not risk re-injury now that the shoulder had almost healed. David’s tendinitis in his wrist comes and goes – and when it came at the time of our last U.S. Open he couldn’t play. For this tournament his wrist was taped, and, after starting off with a 2-0 lead in the 1st game, he promptly lost 8 straight and could never recover. But in the 2nd game he was up 8-2 ... and a winner at 12. Then in the 3rd..."Time Out," says Team Captain Sweeris who, with David down 10-4, certainly isn’t watching this turn of events with any enthusiasm. But – it’s a streaky game – David catches Illas at 15-all, yells to high heaven on going ahead 18-17, begs for "One more!" on reaching 20, and, after getting it on a very competitive point, races back, shouting madly to his bench, "Oosa!" Thereon also sits David’s wife, Joannie, and in her lap little daughter Zoe who had been sleeping off a temperature. "Good time out!" David says with a smile to Todd.

Next match: World #27 Chang vs. World #104 Truksa (though here, as at the Midland Open eight years ago, his name on the tie sheets was metathesized to "Truska"). Jun, up 10-4, 19-11 in the 1st, is playing with great concentration, poise, and control – moving the lanky, bearded Slovak out of position and confusing him with her deceptively casual serve motions. Up 15-9 in the 2nd, she seems a sure winner. Then she loses four in a row, and – "Time!" – had better refocus. Only, as Truksa again takes off his glasses and blows on the lenses, she doesn’t – is down 19-15, having lost 10 straight. How suddenly do such things happen? In the 3rd, Jun’s up 10-7, down 12-10. In the last half of this game she’ll fail to return three serves, the last from 18-all as Truksa caps his comeback by running out the match.

Now it’s World #84 Cheng Yinghua against World – well, nothing – Grezo Martin. When Cheng loses the 1st at 14 (lefty Martin’s got a pretty good backhand), from out of the space of consciousness comes two hurtling thoughts: the Allstars couldn’t be blacked out this tie, could they? Possibly then be beaten in the quarter’s, and earn no prize money at all?...Wow! – Martin gets all of 5 the 2nd game. In the 3rd, Cheng is down, but edges closer (6-2, 10-7, 14-12) until the score is tied. Only, from 17-all Cheng whiffs Garzo’s serve, then misses a forehand. But he doesn’t crack, loops in a beauty, and when Martin serves and misses an easy follow it’s 19-all. "Time" says Coach Marek. Garzo comes back, his head full of instructions ... and misserves! When Cheng wins his 4th point in a row, the Allstars are shining bright.

The rest of the tie is anticlimactic – Cheng has to go three with Illas, but otherwise Slovakia can average only 13 points a game.

Round Robin: Group 1D

In Group 1D the Joola Landau team, so heavily favored on paper, has been handicapped because at the eleventh hour their World #207 Rade Markovic, reportedly the current Yugoslav Champion over World #60 Aleksandar Karakasevic, had been unable to get a visa from the U.S. Ambassador at Frankfort as he thought he would. So what can Captain/Manager Ralf Weber do? Enlist his wife Dana, who’d intended only to chauffeur him to the airport, to take Markovic’s place. A quick call to Dana’s father 120 kilometers away, and, yes, he’ll drive to meet them with her racket and anything else she’d need in the way of clothes and toiletries.

Neither the Pong Masters (Hung Pham, Philip Lim, Avishy Schmidt, and Tri Dinh), who, 1-20, were without the necessary Ping, or zing, nor Mexico A (Guillermo Munoz, Luis Valdes, and Milton Garcia), who in the Pre-lims had knocked out the $500 Girls event-richer Canadian Junior Girls, could contest ties against this Landau team. Dana Weber, it turns out, was a native of Prague, had been a member of the Czech National Team, had played in the Bundesliga, and was now a National Coach at the Heidelberg Center in Germany. In Landau’s first two ties she was undefeated, except for a loss to Mexico’s Munoz who I remember playing one of the great crowd-pleasing matches – a deuce-in-the 5th thriller – at the Pan-Am Games last year.

Mexico had no chance against the Canadian Leftovers (Horatio Pintea, Homayoun Kamkar-Parsi, and Dennis Su), but Munoz, having been helped in the past by Christian Lillieroos’s coaching, did have a commendable win over Kamkar-Parsi, who back in ‘95 had won the English Junior Open. You might say a K-P duty connects him with leftovers, for, as a dedicated Engineering student in Ottawa, he’s in a Co-op Program that requires four months of study combined with four months of work. Which doesn’t leave much time for serious table tennis.

Mexico came through, 5-4, in a tense tie with the NY/NJ team (Wang Chen, Shao Yu, and Ashu Jain). Going into the 9th match, Munoz had won all three, Garcia had dropped all three, and Valdes had lost to Shao but had balanced by upsetting Jain in a pivotal match, 24-22 in the 3rd. Ashu, who’s a Senior at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, has recently taken on more responsibilities – is a Student Government rep, and also a Resident Advisor/Dorm Supervisor, and so just hasn’t been practicing. In the tie-deciding last match, Wang, who seven years ago while playing out of Beijing was one of the top 15 players in the world, but who now had to be much out of practice, used her sticky racket (Chinese rubber with hard sponge) to first- game advantage, often with very good serves and strong follows. But Valdes then realized he couldn’t win backhand-to-backhand exchanges with her, so stepped around to score just enough forehands to swing the play in his favor.

NY/NJ also came up 5-2 short against Landau, as did the Canadian Leftovers – both teams able to take games only from the weaker, 30-year-old Weber.

Quarter’s: CWT (3) – Senoda (0)

Liken the quarter’s tie here, best 3 out of 5 matches, to a very mismatched basketball game. CWT wins: 106 to 52.

Quarter’s: Slovakia (3) – Landau (0)

First up in this quarter is long, lean bespectacled Truksa, winner of the 1994 CNE tournament in Toronto, vs. World #137 Robert Gardos, Hungarian-born but from age 14 on playing for Austria. Although many of the points aren’t anything to write home about, the tension builds, and from the start of the 3rd game Truksa keeps his feet moving, his fist pumping, and his vocal cords exercised. From 16-all in the 3rd, Gardos goes 18-16 down and his bench calls "Time." On his return, the Austrian fearlessly socks in a serve return – 18-17. Truksa counters with a swing, fist, and growl – 19-17...At 19-all, Gardos serves and Truksa loops in a winner. Tries to do it again, can’t – deuce. But two errors from Gardos follow, and, bending to a squat, he hammers restrainedly, staccato-like, the edge of his racket into the Taraflex.

Now it’s Illas against World #143 Koji, who, like Gardos, plays either the #1 or #2 position for his club in the Second Division of the Bundesliga....What’s this? Down 15-14 in the 1st, Koji loses the point, and begins showing everyone his racket: a wet ball, yes? No – as Illas is the first to insist. Perhaps, though, the delay breaks the Slovak’s concentration, for he loses the next 6 points and the game. But then rebounds to take the 2nd. In the 3rd, Koji up 16-12, quickly relinquishes his lead, then from 16-all, serving short into Illas’s forehand, runs it to 19-16. At which point, to the consternation of his bench, he irreversibly loses five straight (one on a nasty net at 19-all). And now, since Weber will be no match for Martin, Landau has lost any chance they had of taking home prize money.

Quarter’s: American Allstars (3) – Canadian Leftovers (1)

The only match of interest here was Kamkar-Parsi’s two-game (27-25 in the 2nd) win over Chang – otherwise it was a 106-67 loss for the Leftovers. But so what. Pintea would go back to flipping pizzas, Su would return to the wilds of Calgary where he’d been hired to help local players get better, and next year, if Kamkar-Parsi had no months to spend on table tennis, perhaps Joe Ng would be warmed-up to take his place.

Quarter’s: Hungary (3) – Top Canadian Men (0)

Another runaway mismatch – see the point spread. Hungary wins: 106 to 71.

Semi’s: CWT (3) – Slovakia (0)

In March of ‘93, CWT’s Wang Yonggang (as the ITTF spelled it then) was World #15. He opens this tie against Illas with a 1st-game win from 16-all. However, perhaps Wang didn’t expect to be challenged so, for, down 19-17 in the 2nd, he serves into the net, and Illas, taking advantage, forces him into the deciding 3rd....Bravo! Illas is back lobbing, lobbing, lobbing, then with a fantastic upsweep of a follow-through propels a backhand counter that perhaps surprises Wang as much as it does the spectators. Problem for the Slovak, though, is at the time he’s behind 9-3, and, as he’d be the first to admit, things don’t get better. Down 20-9 match-point, he serves off.

End of Slovakia’s mini-challenge.

Semi’s: Hungary (3) – American Allstars (2)

This semifinal tie is the one everyone’s been waiting for – and they couldn’t have asked for anything better. Zhuang, exercise-rotating his banded wrist, is first up ... against Fan, whom David Roberts in the May-June, ‘99 issue of our magazine has given us a detailed background of: his early successes as 1985 China Under 16 Champion, 1990 Chinese National’s semifinalist, and World #27 with impressive wins over Asian and European players, as well as his later (1998) success in championing his Hungarian Club to a Superliga title.

Zhuang, though he’s 37, six years older than Fan, looks just as fit. And at 14-all in the 1st just as competitive. Although Yong, as those in his Portland, OR home club call him, moves to 20-17, he’s troubled by one or the other of David’s high-toss serves – which, for some reason, down 20-19, David doesn’t give him, and Fan wallops in what he is given for the win. In the 2nd game, Zhuang’s off to a 4-1, 7-2 start, only to see Yong, on closing to 8-6, suddenly, casually, up-to-the-table chop a return, then fiercely explode a backhand in. A change of pace that certainly catches me off guard. But David pulls away, ties the match.

At 7-all in the 3rd, the umpire misses a let, awards the point to David, but Fan is fair, corrects the call. Down 11-9, Fan surprises Zhuang with a fast serve down the forehand line. However, David, helped by a net ball (which he expresses thanks for by kissing the net), goes up 15-10 – and Yong’s bench calls "Time!" The umpire places on Fan’s side of the table a circular object with a visible "T" on it that looks like it could hold, impartially, either a cold bottle of wine or a hot candle. When play resumes, David’s lead is reduced to 18-16, but then he gets the next point and since he has the serve, he’s going to be the winner? Uh, maybe not. At 19-18 Zhuang’s bench calls "Time!"

David then scores on a crucial serve and follow – and it’ll make the 21-19 difference. He flies from the table – is high – and seems ready to soar over the barrier into his teammates’ arms but stops just in time. Better not risk hurting self – he might have to play again.

Next up: Cheng vs. the bandana-bound, boundingly acrobatic Pazsy. The first two games are uncontestedly traded – Cheng having been up 11-4 in the 1st, Pazsy 17-8 in the 2nd. By now more and more noon-time spectators have come to watch and applaud. "I’ve never seen so many orientals," says a longtime local aficionado." They’re all pleased Sichuan U.S. Champion Cheng is up 8-2? Not all. Some are rooting for Fan’s team – and do so as Pazsy closes to 8-6. "Time!" says Capt. Sweeris. A predictable sequential reality ... like what we know numerically must necessarily follow the 17-all score these evenly matched players have soon ticklishly arrived at. "USA!...USA!" – Zhuang spontaneously introduces his variant of the human equation, tries to rouse nearby support for it....Down 20-18 match-point after Pazsy wickedly loops in a winner, Cheng blocks stubbornly, but can’t repel what at this hour might have seemed 21-19 inevitable. Allstars 1 – Hungary 1.

Now Chang against Varga. A few points into the 1st game Jun serves off, throws up her hands, rolls her eyes (Oh, what did I do? Wasn’t that silly?). But she’s anything but flighty. Persistently she serves to Varga’s backhand, then pushes way to his forehand where he has to stretch. The match itself, as it were, strives for balance – goes Varga’s way, then Chang’s. Jun begins the 3rd with a succession of beautifully positioned blocks, and up 5-2 is in over the table scoring with a pip of a low, flat forehand. But Varga, grunting out topspins, evens at 6-all. Into the mid-game, each has trouble with the other’s serves. Jun, down 11-9, rallies, with the help of an edge, to go 14-12 up. Then, the turning point of the match: Chang cracks what would seem a 15-12 winner, but Varga fast-hands instinctively makes a sensational 14-13 counter. Gaining momentum from this extraordinary return, he builds a 17-14 lead. And since a "Time Out" can’t stop him, our U.S. titleholders in their attempt to win this tournament may be star-crossed. Hungary 2 – Allstars 1.

The fourth match pits Zhuang’s pips-out, rapid-fire attack against Pazsy’s powerful double-wing topspin. Up 14-13 in the 1st, David breaks open the game by scoring five in a row. Up 18-14 in the 2nd, he’s bringing home a winner? Maybe not. No more points while the Hungarian’s serving and ripping away – 18-17. Zhuang, preparing to serve, blows on the ball. This is the mental visualization technique that McCool was talking about? David means to be a fire-breathing dragon? After a "Let," he loses the point. Again, preparing to serve, he blows on the ball. And again, after a "Let," he loses the point. Enough of that. But at deuce Pazsy fast-serves and crushes a follow. Then finishes, ala his famous countryman of the ‘70’s, by Klampar-curling the ball around the net into David’s forehand for a game-winner.

Zhuang not only changes ends for the 3rd game, he changes shirts. After getting off to a 5-1 lead, he goes up 7-4 on a flashy crosscourt forehand. Then he forces a sitter, and just as David takes a mighty swing at it, Pazsy leans in close over the table to try to trap the ball and David barely misses decapitating him. "I almost killed you!" he says. The Hungarian gives no ground, never stops attacking, scores on some squat loops. Zhuang’s just as aggressive. In the end-game, David’s ahead 18-17, but Pazsy’s got the serve. After an exchange of points, the Hungarian bench calls "Time!" Pazsy returns, serves into the net! Since such an unforgiveable mistake had also happened at a crucial point in Cheng Yinghua’s match with Slovakia’s Martin, one wonders, when play is interrupted, how often the desired effect is really achieved. Maybe someone’s doing a Ph.D. Sports Psychology study on it? From 19-all another exchange of points. Then Zhuang serves and Pazsy errs, mishits the ball. And errs again. David, the deuce-in-the-3rd winner, collapses flat on his back on court. But not for long. "WOW!" he says on coming back to his bench. After accepting congratulations, he begins to peel the tape off his wrist. "Your wrist o.k.?" I ask. "What do you think?" he says. "Everything’s o.k. now."

An assessment a bit premature, perhaps – especially when Cheng loses a very anticlimactic 1st game to Fan. On Friday, with the opening of these Championships, Cheng turned 42; Fan is 31. The age difference shows – Cheng is slower to react, has more trouble reaching off-balance for a ball and getting back into position.

In the 2nd, it’s 5-all when Cheng feels Fan has won a point with a double hit – finger and racket. Fan says No, the umpire says No, but Cheng’s smile and hesitation to play continue to say otherwise. Next point Fan responds by deliberately mishitting his return....On through the mid-game into the end game they go, with Fan occasionally, on losing a point, letting loose with an exhortation to self. When Fan’s backhand-off-the-bounce pick-up brings him to 17-all, and he increases his lead to 19-17, it’s "Time!" for Cheng to steady. At 19-all, the Hungarians call "Time!" Now the crowd begins to clap. There’s a big difference between $6,000 and $1,200. In a sense, they’re showing appreciation for both teams – for both deserve that, and more. After play resumes, the score becomes deuce, and strangely escalates, for from 21-all through 25-all whoever has the serve loses the point. Finally, with the help of a forehand counter and an ad-up serve and follow, Cheng prevails, 28-26. "Whew," says Alan Williams over the mike, "now everybody can breathe."

In the 3rd, Cheng, up 9-5, 12-6, 17-13 is holding his lead. At 17-15 he questions an edge Fan definitely got, and – no freebie this time – Fan flashes out, "Look at the video!" A losing point, and an awkward return by Cheng, should have produced a tie score, but Fan’s loop was long – or did it hit? NOOO!, Fan, it didn’t, chorused a small section of the crowd. Another miss by Fan and Cheng’s up 19-16. Then 19-17...19-18. And now Fan gets a big break. The ump doesn’t see it, Cheng doesn’t see it, but as Fan leans his playing arm on the table to keep his balance on a winning follow through, he moves the table – or at least I and others at ringside thought he did (later I checked the table wheels, kicked one, and, sure enough, the other one moved, was unlocked). Fan’s winner brings the score to 19-all. Cheng then loops in one of his patented backhands to go match-point up. But the match himself he’s not to get, for his try for a winner ticks off the net, and that ad’s his last. A big disappointment for the Allstars. Hungary advances to meet CWT in the final.

Final: Hungary (3) – CWT (2)

It’s not the table Fan’s dissatisfied with as he prepares to open against Wang, it’s the net – doesn’t it need adjustment? There, that’s better – off Wang’s serve, Fan’s off to a 5-0 start.Then, after being caught at 8-all, he forges ahead again, 12-9. Now, a moment of distraction for Wang – he reaches down, ties the laces to one of his green shoes. Steps back to the table, has a second moment of distraction – serves into the net. Scores only three more points. In the 2nd, Fan’s again at 8-all, getting into his backhand-loop mode, and when he’s up 15-10 the match seems predictably over. Members of the tournament staff prepare to throw – what? unlit firecrackers? – oh, souvenir water bottles into different sections of the crowd. Wang, however, is not ready for circus comedy – nor is he non-plussed by Fan’s sudden Time Out. He wins six in a row, takes a 16-15 lead. Favoring a serve where, standing sideways, he first bounces the ball on the racket, then, on throwing it up, hunches his body forward to make contact, he goes on to twice have the ad. But he can’t finish, and CWT has lost its first match of the tournament.

Chen Longcan, playing in the second (which also means the fifth) position, as he did against Slovakia, is going to make quick work of Pazsy? No, don’t let Chen’s 4-0 start fool you. It’s immediately 4-4 – and they play even to 18-17 Chen, where, because Chen’s been having trouble with Pazsy’s serves, and Pazsy’s committed to aggressive serve-and-follows, it’s very much a hit or miss situation for the Hungarian. With Chen leading 20-19, the two warriors play probably the best point of the tournament – a thrusting, hopping corner-to-corner barrage from both sides, punctuated by a superb Chen block, and undiminshed topspin exchanges. Chen wins this point, and, as if more to oblige the cheering crowd than satisfy self, raises his arms in humble victory.

In the 2nd game, Pazsy begins by long-range rocketing in backhands, goes 9-6 up. But then play becomes a mirror image of the first, and Pazsy is ahead 18-17 having to face Chen’s serve. That’s too much for the Hungarian to handle; he can’t get another point. Hungary 1 – CWT 1.

Takashi vs. Varga features off the get-go rat-tat-tat counter-kills of would-be winners. The ball has to be kept very short – or smacko! Varga expends maximum energy on every forehand, but often Takashi’s up at the table parrying with blocks. Varga also has a peculiar serve motion: he brings the racket straight up, as if to block the sight of his right eye, then on releasing the ball he comes into it, kicking his left leg back into a footstamp. Twice approaching the end-game Takashi fails to return serve – but then up 18-17 with his own serve exerts total control. Amazing then in the 2nd Varga has him 9-0! When the Hungarian’s ahead 18-12, the players suddenly go into a 4-foot-high beginner’s pop-up exchange, which after several mutual touches Takashi "wins" – 18-13. The players look at the umpire as if he’s crazy. Uh, yes, let – 18-12. Not much comic relief for Varga though, for Takashi draws to 18-17. But this rally is abruptly stopped, the momentum shifted, when Varga in mid-point unexpectedly intersperses his grunting forehands with a change-of-pace very soft roll and then blasts a winner. Match tied.

Up 12-3 in the 3rd, Varga’s doing just fine. But at 12-6 why take chances? "Time!" The always serious Captain/Coach Laszlo Vargas defers to a casually-capped Fan, and the advice Zoltan receives ... well, it makes no difference – 15-9. Then – how the Hungarians really put out, work for points – 18-9. It’s all ov – whoa, what’s happening? Yells, signals, silent curses ... on court and off – 18-15! But Varga steadies, continues the last point right through his ticked-net serve, and Hungary is up 2-1.

Out swinging come Wang and Pazsy. They play even to 15-all. But then ... in a funk, funky – is that the way to describe the Hungarian and his serve returns? Two into the net, another pushed off, the 4th not in play either – first game a gift to Wang, 21-17.

In the 2nd, Paszy is up 18-17 – but it’s Wang’s $6,000 serve again. In a funk, funky – is that the way to describe the Hungarian and his serve returns? Au contraire. He is world-class. A good B or C player at this critical moment might not be be able to visualize anything on the slate screen of his memory but negative re-runs; Pazsy’s mind-screen shows a quite different picture – Pazsy 21-17.

The decider....At 12-all, Wang, like a swordsman of old, thrusts right, left: the point pierces. A mere flesh wound. Now, though, it’s as if Pazsy is incensed: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 in a row he scores – the last on a vintage Hungarian loop, late-breaking around the net, alley-ooping into the pocket, scattering you would think all of Wang’s hopes. But from 19-13 down he doesn’t give up, nor does he from 20-16 match point down, though Pazsy has the serve, serve, serve, serve. Wang fights magnificently – counters, lunges with a fencer’s grace, deuces it. Again Pazsy has the ad. Timed to "Time!", thunderclaps rumble rhythmically from the audience – they anticipate the end. But Pazsy can’t take advantage of his serve. Worse, he pushes Wang’s serve into the net; but Wang, perhaps overanxious, fails to loop in Pazsy’s serve. At 23-all, the Hungarian fearlessly pummels in a serve return; then serves into the net. Down 26-25, Pazsy rears up and roars in a courageous backhand – deuce again. Following an exchange of serve-return errors, it’s 28-all. Now, though, a dangerous mistake – Wang serves into the net. And, finally, a fatal one – Pazsy serves and Wang pushes his return off. Hungary 3 – CWT 1.

The Hungarian team is up off their bench, ecstatic. Such an experience is sure to be take-home memorable – the more so because they’ll be accompanied by 1,750,000 Hungarian forints (about $6000). But others, too, from near or far, are gratified that they’ve come to this special tournament. Landau Coach/Manager Ralf Weber said he was pleased to have been a part of it all, and appreciated President Lee’s flexibility in allowing him to last-minute substitute his wife for another player. "This tournament is quite different from those in Europe," he said. "So many people come and play here – informally, men and women together – and just have fun. That’s great – to play and have fun."

North American Teams Results

North American Hardbat Championships, Nov. 23-24, 2000