Martin Ness

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Martin Ness (born February 18, 1942 in Augsburg ; † October 12, 1987 in Biburg near Diedorf ) was a successful German table tennis player in the 1960s . At the 1969 World Cup he reached the final with the men's team.

Career

As a teenager, Ness was runner-up at the Bavarian and German championships, and at the European Junior Championships he took third place in singles, doubles and mixed. With Post SV Augsburg he first played in the Oberliga , the top German division at the time, and from 1966 to 1971 in the 1st Bundesliga . In 1967 he won the German Cup with this club and then took part in the European Cup. In 1971 Ness switched to TTG Altena-Nachrodt , with whom he became German champion and German cup winner in 1973.

Ness was somewhat overshadowed by Eberhard Schöler , against whom he lost the final of the German championship in 1965 and 1967. In 1973, however, he was defeated by Wilfried Lieck and was the third time German runner-up in the individual. For this he was 4 times German champion in doubles.

Between 1960 and 1971 he played a total of 65 international matches for Germany. He was first used in November 1960 against Austria, where he won all three singles. In 1984 he ended his active career.

On June 6, 1969, the Federal President in Bonn presented him with the Silver Laurel Leaf for his outstanding sporting achievements .

When designing his table tennis racket , he was a real tinkerer. Long before John Hilton became European champion with a similar construction in Berne in 1980 , Ness used an anti-topspin rubber on his backhand , whose brittle, large-pored and inelastic sponge base he had exchanged for a highly elastic 2.5 mm thick offensive sponge.

The Ness affair

Following the European Championship in 1964 , the board of the German Table Tennis Association (DTTB) accused Martin Ness of "uncomfortable and indisciplinary" behavior. He reportedly returned the official DTTB suit late and in a messy condition. The DTTB board followed up this superficial accusation with further incidents. Because of these allegations, the DTTB did not nominate the then second-best German player, Ness, for the 1965 World Cup . The DTTB sports committee assessed this sanction as a player ban. Since the sports committee is responsible for player bans, it felt ignored, which is why four of the seven committee members resigned in February and March 1965 (Eberhard Rottkewitz, Rudi Gruber , Anton Luberichs, Willi Meyer). The resulting crisis in the DTTB was inconvenient, especially with regard to the upcoming World Cup. After the World Cup, the DTTB terminated the journalist Adolf Hüngsberg without notice because he had written a critical report on the events in the DTS specialist body, while the collaboration with the author Hans Wilhelm Gäb was ended.

After replacing the board in Borkum in 1965, Ness was again nominated for the national team.

  1. ↑ disregarding of Ness - magazine DTS , 1965/3 edition West Page 2
  2. ^ Resignation of Rottkewitz - DTS magazine , 1965/5 West issue, page 2
  3. ^ Resignation of Gruber, Luberichs and Meyer - DTS magazine , 1965/6 West issue, page 2
  4. ↑ Hans Korn: "Case Martin Ness" put in the right light - DTS magazine , 1965/8 West issue page 13
  5. ^ Statement by the DTTB board - DTS magazine , 1965/8 West issue, page 16
  6. ↑ The editor of the specialist magazine Deutscher Tischtennis Sport Adolf Hüngsberg is replaced by Ralf Schoppe, end of the cooperation with Gäb . - DTS magazine , 1965/10 issue West page 2 + 1965/11 page 2 + page 5–6 + page 18
  7. ↑ Heinz-Joachim Kermel: What must the future bring? , DTS magazine , 1965/12 West issue pages 15-16
  8. ↑ Ness again nominated for the national team. - DTS magazine , 1965/14 West issue page 5

Private

Ness lived in Neusäß near Augsburg. He had trained as a grocer. He was married to Heide Margarete since 1964, they have a son Alexander and a daughter Simone. After the end of his table tennis career, he was active in alpine mountaineering. On October 12, 1987, he was hit by a train on the Augsburg – Ulm railway line and fatally injured.

successes

  • Participation in table tennis world championships
    • 1961 in Beijing
      • 8th place with men's team
    • 1967 in Stockholm
      • 3rd place with men's team
    • 1969 in Munich
      • 2nd place with men's team
    • 1971 in Nagoya
      • Round of 16 in doubles
      • 6th place with men's team
  • Participation in European championships
    • 1962 in Berlin-West (not part of the team)
    • 1964 in Malmö
      • 6th place with men's team
    • 1966 in London
      • Quarterfinals in doubles
      • 7th place with men's team
    • 1970 in Moscow
      • 5th place with men's team
  • International championships
  • National ranking tournaments
    • 1964 in Mölln: 1st place
    • 1966 in Wiesloch: 3rd place
    • 1969 in Siegen: 4th place
    • 1970 in Augsburg: 1st place
    • 1971 in Duisburg: 4th place
  • German team championships
    • 1973 1st place with TTG Altena-Nachrodt
  • German cup championships
    • 1967 in Augsburg: 1st place with Post SV Augsburg
    • 1973 in Velbert: 1st place with TTG Altena-Nachrodt
  • Bavarian Championships
    • 1958 Youth Championship: 2nd place individual
    • 1961 Munich: 1st place singles, 1st place doubles (with Josef Seiz )
    • 1963 Straubing: 1st place doubles (with Anton Breumair ), 1st place mixed (with Heide Dauphin )
    • 1964 Nuremberg: 1st place singles, 1st place mixed (with Karla Schulz )
    • 1965 Schwandorf: 1st place singles, 1st place doubles (with Anton Breumair ), 1st place mixed (with Heide Dauphin )
    • 1966 Erlangen: 1st place individual
    • 1967 Augsburg: 1st place doubles (with Peter Stähle )
    • 1968 Rosenheim: 1st place singles, 1st place doubles (with Peter Stähle ), 1st place mixed (with Heidi Müller )
    • 1969 Würzburg: 1st place singles, 1st place mixed (with Sieglinde Prell )
    • 1970 Straubing: 1st place mixed (with Sieglinde Prell )
    • 1971 Augsburg: 1st place singles, 1st place doubles (with Peter Stähle ), 1st place mixed (with Sieglinde Prell )
    • 1972 Schwandorf: 1st place singles, 1st place doubles (with Bernd Deffner), 1st place mixed (with Sieglinde Prell )
    • 1976 sheet: 1st place doubles (with Walter Pfister)
    • 1977 Weiden: 1st place singles, 1st place doubles (with Walter Pfister)
    • 1978 Rehau: 1st place individual
    • 1979 Neustadt / Aisch: 1st place doubles (with Walter Pfister)
  • Ranking positions
    • 1964–1967: 2nd place in the German ranking list

Results from the ITTF database

Association event year place country singles Double Mixed team
FRG European Championship 1966 London CLOSELY Quarter finals
FRG European Youth Championship (Juniors) 1959 Constanza ROU Semifinals
FRG World Championship 1971 Nagoya JPN last 128 last 16 last 64 6th
FRG World Championship 1969 Munich FRG last 64 last 64 last 64 2
FRG World Championship 1967 Stockholm SWE last 128 last 64 last 128 4th
FRG World Championship 1961 Beijing CHN last 64 last 16 last 32 8th

literature

  • Manfred Schäfer: On the death of Martin Ness , DTS magazine , 1987/11 page 30

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DTS magazine , 1960/22 issue West p. 3
  2. ↑ DTS magazine , 1984/9 p. 53
  3. ^ DTS magazine , 1964/5 West issue, back
  4. ↑ Martin Ness results from the ITTF database on ittf.com (accessed on September 13, 2011)
personal data
SURNAME Ness, Martin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German table tennis player
DATE OF BIRTH February 18, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH augsburg
DATE OF DEATH October 12, 1987
Place of death Biburg (Diedorf)