Threatening Czechs

For a generation or more the Hungarians have had no peers at the game of table tennis. When the Dowager Lady Swaythling put a cup into international team competition in 1927, the Hungarians proceeded to win it and defend it with monotonous regularity.

Last week when 300 table tennists from 16 nations met in London to play for singles and doubles world championships as well as the Swaythling Cup and the Corbillon Cup (for women), Hungary had plenty of competition. The U. S., which had taken the Swaythling Cup last year, turned out to be not much of a bogey, but not so the Czechs. A pair of them; won the women's doubles, a team of Czechs took the Corbillon Cup, and a single Czech, Bohumil Vana, eliminated Viktor Barna, the great Hungarian paddler, in the semi-finals and Defending Champion Richard Bergmann of Austria in the final of the men's singles. In the men's doubles, the Hungarian team of Barna & Bellak were set back by Sol Schiff & Jimmy McClure of the U. S. An Austrian, Trudi Pritzi, won the women's singles. But Hungary regained the Swaythling Cup.

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