Zdenko Uzorinac's "Legends"

Book Review by USATT Historian Tim Boggan

In compiling this unique compendium of table tennis lore in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the ITTF, the Croatian Historian and former Yugoslav International Zdenko Uzorinac (abetted by English translator Janko Paravic) devotes himself primarily to profiles of the World’s most famous players (of one Champion, he says freshly, she was “round-faced, with glasses such as worn by old ladies playing dominoes”). But since the “Legends” is also an eight-decade summing-up of our Sport, it’s necessary for Zdenko to at least briefly discuss the origin and development of Table Tennis (with special emphasis on the evolution of the racket), to pay homage to outstanding officials, to show how table tennis has been organized on the various continents (Japan played in a tournament in Shanghai as early as 1927), and to detail the considerable advances of the ITTF (as well as give a nod to the 1967-formed Swaythling Club International).

Moreover, he intersperses his text with hundreds of photos, any number of them striking, two of which I’ll mention here – one, in color, of Sweden’s Jorgen Persson serving, his eyes focused on the white ball which seems to be centered on his forehead, while, below, the ball’s shadow creeps like a brown malignancy across his nose; the other, in stark black and white, of Germany’s Jorg Rosskopf as a sleight-of-hand magician, black curtain, as it were, behind him, his face framed by his ten fanned out fingers each separated by taut-gripped, white table-tennis balls.

Any reader can see that this ambitious book is a labor of love, and that, though the writer feels he must adopt a more or less formulaic thumbnail approach to acquainting us with all these Champions – where and when they were born, how they first became seriously interested in table tennis, their major accomplishments, and their off-court and/or afterlives, so to speak – he always tries hard for readability.

And, despite some difficulties in translation, Zdenko CAN write. He talks about the Yugoslav star Anton Stipancic early in his career, in 1968, bringing back “a cup to his native Duga Resa, a cotton industry town, to a magnificent welcome.” Then he follows with the line, “Thus, the Duga Resa spindle spun the finest yarn, equal to the finest Chinese silk.” And so finds the literate transition sentence that enables him to move on to when in Munich in ‘69 Stipancic will beat Japan’s Defending World Champion Nobuhiko Hasegawa, while at the same time he reminds us of the dominating Chinese Champions of the ‘60’s, who will soon return to competition.

Hasegawa, I might add, who at the Osaka World’s looked the fittest 54-year-old I’ve ever seen, is said by Zdenko to have trained with “lead weights round his waist and sandbags round his wrists in order to improve his footwork and the strength of his arms.” Heavy, huh?

I’d be ashamed to nit-pick about any proofreading errors in this wonderful book, for as a Historian myself I know how easy it is, despite one’s scrupulous attention, to still make mistakes. Let me be specific, though, in telling you what most engaged my imagination in these pages – and that is of course the anecdotal.

Gently humorous is Jean-Michel Saive’s account of how he won his first title. In Belgium’s National Class B Doubles. Women’s Doubles. In his winning pregnant mother’s womb.

Left: Reviewer Tim Boggan and author Zdenko Uzorinac.

Of course that’s stretching it. Also humorous, but not gently so, is Zdenko’s little story about Hungary’s “Enfant Terrible,” Tibor Klampar. The Hungarians are having a practice session when Klampar tells his no-nonsense Coach, Zoltan “Zoli” Berczik, that he wants to leave to go to a Western movie – his girlfriend’s waiting for him. Naturally, Berczik says, Forget that. But, says Klampar breaking his racket, I’ve nothing to play with. Right, says Berczik, so jog 5-times round the stadium. “So, Tibor jogged...to the next pastry shop. The incorrigible Klampi bought fifty pastries and smeared all the glasses of Berczik’s car...and deflated its tires....They say that Zoli went mad.”

Ah, well, suspended Klampar’s World Champion teammate Istvan Jonyer did say, “...cheek which may border on overbearing behavior...drives you to play a crazy, risky game at some point.”

Doubtless, Champions do take calculated risks. The great French player of an early era, Michel Haguenauer, in 1944, on being taken to a concentration camp by the Germans managed to escape by jumping out of the running train. Of course, as Zdenko points out, Haguenauer always was his own man – had a unique hammer grip, swore profusely on court, smoked three packs of cigarettes a day, had three wives, and never gave in to age.

In bygone days, as the Sport was developing, there were more “characters” than athletes. Yugoslavia’s Dragutin Surbek, locked in an embrace with fellow World Doubles Champion Zoran Kalinic 40 years after Haguenauer’s leap for life, never smoked or drank – though some might have thought his hotel-room “gymnastic exercises” and use of “Chinese ointments and lotions” excessive.

Whacky, but not as whacky as Klampar, was Surbek’s Team Psychologist who had a tape made for “Surba” and earphones at the ready. “You are the winner, Surbek,” it kept saying. “The opponent is strong, but you are stronger. He will play the way you want him to....You are the winner, Surbek. The opponent is strong, but you are stronger...”

A little strange, you think? But not as strange as what Japan’s Kimiyo Matsuzaki said she saw in a climactic Corbillon Cup tie with the South Koreans at the 1959 World’s. “The coach of the Korean team first took his player [Cho Kyung Cho] aside and hypnotized her. She came back to the table and played as if in a trance...and won the first game. After each point won Cho would look at her coach, who gave her a penetrating gaze, his arms outstretched towards her.” But eventually “the telepathic link began to grow feeble,” and Japan won that particular match and the title.

Coaches do have their special methods. Zdenko says that Hungary’s Csilla Batorfi’s father used to yell out to her during matches, “B-2” or “G-6” or whatever – coded service commands they’d worked out during her practice of “up to 300 (!) serves a day.”

And speaking of serves, China’s World Champion Jiang Jialiang says that at the 1982 Yugoslav Open he finally “just helplessly spread his arms, unable to return Kalinic’s services: not one or two but seventeen (!) missed services in two games.” The problem was of course – and tell it to those who 20 years later in Osaka were still loath to vote for the new service rule – that Kalinic was “hiding the ball with his body while serving,” and Jiang “couldn’t see the rotation imparted to it.”

Who says History doesn’t repeat itself?

And how important IS the past anyway? Well, without it, we wouldn’t have this fact-filled, entertaining book to read in the present – a book that serves as a source of inspiration to allow us to continue to care passionately about Table Tennis in the future.

Well done, Zdenko – and Thank You.