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In response to my questions for Joo Sehyuk, carbonman wrote "birding, the 1975 Worlds was very famous. Amongst other things it inspired a whole generation to try to play like Jonyer. Also, it was pretty much saw the birth of LP on the world stage when Lu Yuan Sheng used it to defeat Surbek. I would love to read some of your impressions of the event if you would like to relate them. cheers."
I thought that it would probably best if I answered this question by starting a new thread.
Carbonman, thanks for your questions, which bring back lots of great memories. I still have a copy of the program from the 1975 World Championships in Calcutta, India, so I looked up the scores of many matches to refresh my memory. (I should mention that this was the only world championships that I competed in. I was 18 years old, and a member of the Canadian men's team. My table tennis career came to an end a few months after the world champoinships due to a serious back injury.)
My description is a lot longer than I had intended. I took my daughter to her violin lesson, and had no internet access during her 45-minute lesson, so I spent that time writing this description about my world champtionship memories. I hope that a few people find this to be interesting, and that the length isn't too extreme. (I got sort of carried away with all of my good memories.)
With regard to Istvan Jonyer's winning the men' singles, I remember his first round match (round of 128) with Ingemar Wikstroem from Sweden. (Being a participant in the World Championships, I was able to watch all matches except for the team event final from the floor.) At one point in the match, Wikstroem was winning 18-14 in the 5th game. To me, Jonyer looked as if he had given up. He was looking all round, and didn't seem to be focused on the match. I was certain that this was about to be the first big upset of the tournament. Of course, I couldn't be more wrong, as Jonyer won the next 7 points to win the match. In the second round, Jonyer played Jaroslav Kunz of Czechoslovakia. Kunz won the first two games rather easily. I then left to watch another match. I don't recall if I left the Jonyer/Kunz match because it looked to be a foregone conclusion that Kunz would win, or because I had to watch a teammate play. (All members of the Canadian team were required to watch all of each other's matches, even if a big match was taking place elsewhere.) I later heard that Jonyer had come back to win the next 3 games. In the 3rd round, Jonyer played Errol Caetano, one of my teammates. Normally I would have thought that Errol would have had no chance against Jonyer, but given that Jonyer had struggled through the first two rounds, I thought that Errol might have had a chance. However, it didn't work out that way, as Jonyer won 3-0. In the 4th round, Jonyer had an easy win over Li Peng, one of the lesser known players on the Chinese team, placing Jonyer in the quarter finals. Since only one member of the Chinese team made the quarter finals in the men's singles (Hsi En-ting), many people, including myself, were wondering whether the Chinese players were losing their matches intentionally. In his quarter final match, Jonyer beat Sarkhayan of the Soviet Union in a close 3-1 match. The semi-final between Jonyer and Kohno of Japan was rather boring, as Jonyer won that match in three easy games. Prior to that match, the coach of the Canadian team, Zlatko Cordas, told me that Jonyer's record against Kohno was something like 10 wins and 0 losses. So, I was expecting a lobsided match. The final between Jonyer and Stipancic was very exciting. Jonyer was down 2 games to 0, and came back to win the next 3 games. I'll never forget the last point of the match, since it ended with Stipancic chopping and Jonyer looping. Stipancic could do everything, including chopping, very well, but that is certainly not what he would have wanted when down 20-19 in the 5th game of the world championship final!
One special memory for me in the men's singles was seeing Norio Takashima reach the semi-final, where he lost to Stipancic 3 games to 2. For those not familiar, Takashima was amongst the best defensive players of all time. Even though I played with anti-spin on my backhand, and Takashima used inverted rubber on his backhand, I tried to model my game as best as I could after Takashima. He was an incredible player. I got to watch Takashima in several different tournaments, taking many pages of notes each time. I also had some very nice conversations with Takashima too.
Although you didn't ask me about the women's singles, I have some interesting memories of Kim Yung-Sun's win. Kim Yung-Sun was from North Korea. (Tragically, she passed away when she was about 30 years old.) Kim
played Jill Hammersly in the first found. Our team was traveling with the English team, so we often supported each other in our matches. Jill had the entire Canadian and English team cheering her on. Kim seemed to have
no one supporting her. I had the impression that there were no other North Korean coaches or players present. Anyway, Kim won a very close 3-2 match. Kim's route to the round of 16 was straightforward, after which she won another close 3-2 match against Lotaller of Hungary. In the quarter finals, Kim beat my favourite women's player, Chung Hyun-sook of South Korea, an incredible defensive player, who together with Lee Ailesa had won the 1973 World Team Championship, an accomplishment that is still well remembered in South Korea today. This match was another close 3-2 win for Kim. In the semi-finals, Kim won her fourth 3-2 match against Ferdmans of the Soviet Union. I remember cheering for Kim. The finals was, unfortunately, perhaps the most disappointing match I have ever seen. I think that it was obvious to almost everyone present that Chang Li was ordered to lose to Kim. As a result, the finals was a boring, lopsided meaningless match.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of these world championships for me was seeing Chinese defensive players using lonp pips. I had never seen long pips before, and I don't really know if this was the first
world championships in which long pips was used. On the men's team, Lu Yuan-sheng used long pips, as I think did Liang Ko-liang. There was also a women on the Chinese team that used long pips, but I don't recall her name. At the time, because of its effectiveness, I had wondered whether long pips would completely change table tennis, somewhat in analogy to the introduction of sponge rubber by Satoh in the 1952 World Championships. As I mentioned, I stopped playing competitively a few months after the world championships, and didn't resume playing until about one year ago. Upon returning to the game I could see that long pips, although popular, didn't revolutionize table tennis as I had wondered might happen. The most memorable long pips match was between Lu Yuan-sheng and Dragutin Surbek in the men's team finals. Surbek was totally confused by Lu throughout the match. Surbek didn't know what to do with the longs pips, and he seemed to be unable to distinguish the inverted rubber from the long pips. (In those days, the colour of both sides of the racket could be the same.) As a result, the match was lopsided. For me, it was exciting to see a defensive player beat Surbek, as I regarded Surbek as the best player in the world against defense. I thought he was unbeatable for a defensive player. However, as the match progressed my excitement diminished. The match was too lopsided. There were few longs points, it was mostly Surbek missing everything. Many of Surbeks loops landed on his side of the table, well short of the net. To compare this to modern-day table tennis, it would be as if an unknown chopper beat Wang Hao at a score like 11-2, 11-3, 11-1, with the majority of Wang's loops being missed. Lu's beating Surbek so badly made me feel that Lu's equipment was the key factor, not his exceptional defensive skills.
For anyone that is interested in how I did in the world championships, in the team competition, as I recall, I think that I lost more matches that I won, in the men's singles I lost in the 3rd preliminary round to Dal-joon Lee of the US, and in the men's doubles I was disqualified. With regard to the men's doubles, my partner was Joseph Azulay from Israel. Joseph could not attend the world championships, along with all of his teammates, since India refused to grant visas to the Israeli table tennis team. This was unfortunate. In the men's doubles, we had a very easy draw to the round of 32, as we would have had to beat teams from countries such as Mauritius, North Yemen and Brazil. In the round of 32, we would have played a team from Poland, which I think we would have had an excellent chance to win. That would have put us into the round of 16 against Istvan Jonyer and Gabor Gergeley, the eventual world champions. Even though we would have certainly lost, it would have been a
very exciting and memorable opportunity to have played against them.
I do have one question for anyone that has read this far. Was the 1975 World Championship indeed the first international competition in which long pips were introduced? It would be exciting to know that I saw such an historic table tennis competition. Also, since I now use long pips, this would be for me personally quite interesting.
Steven
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Butterfly Joo Se Hyuk
Butterfly Tenergy 80-FX 1.9mm
TSP Curl P1R 1.4-1.7mm
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Returned to table tennis September 2011
Canada National Team Member, 1973-1975
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1972-1987
Brickell Balsa/Birch 3-ply Blade
Yasaka Mark V 1.5mm
Joola Toni Hold AntiTopspin 2.5mm
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