Table tennis world championship 1937

Table tennis world championship
1936 ← WM 1937 → 1938
date	1-7 February 1937
venue	to bathe
winner
Single (♂)	Richard Bergmann
Single (♀)	Ruth Hughes Aaron's Trude Pritzi
Double (♂)	Robert Blattner James McClure
Double (♀)	Vlasta Depetrisová Věra Votrubcová
Doubles (mixed)	Bohumil Váňa Věra Votrubcová
Team (♂)	United States
Team (♀)	United States

The 11th table tennis world championship took place from February 1st to 7th, 1937 in the spa town of Baden (Austria) in the Trink-Kurhalle (today's casino). In order to make the tournament more attractive, each participant was reimbursed half of his travel expenses.

Overview

The new time rules were applied several times : games with two winning sets could not last longer than an hour, games with three winning sets no longer than 105 minutes. A single sentence could last a maximum of 30 minutes. The match between Sergey Senekovic (Yugoslavia) and Abou Heif (Egypt) was rated as a draw because the maximum playing time of 30 minutes was exceeded in the first set. In the encounter between Helmuth Goebel (Austria) and Farkas Paneth (Romania), both were disqualified for exceeding the time limit.

13 teams competed for the men. The USA surprisingly took first place, which embarrassed all the other teams, especially with their “snap serves”. This was the first time that a non-European team won the title; the Japanese would not succeed again until 1954.

The USA also won the women's team competition. The German team took second place. Dieter Mauritz did not take part in the World Cup because of his high school diploma.

The final in the women's singles was played by Ruth Hughes Aarons (USA) and Trude Pritzi (Austria). Pritzi won the first set, while Aarons won the second. In the third set, when the score was 19:16, the game was abandoned due to a timeout (105 minutes). The game was not rated and therefore no new title was awarded. It wasn't until 64 years later that both players were subsequently awarded the gold medal.

useful information

• Richard Bergmann - a defensive player - was three times individual world champion, but for different countries: 1937 for Austria, 1939, 1948 and 1950 for England. After Austria was annexed to Germany in 1938, he fled to England because, as a Jew, he feared reprisals from the Nazis.
• Richard Bergmann was until today (2019) at the age of 17 the youngest individual world champion.
• Bergmann died in 1970. In his honor, the Fair Play Prize was renamed the Richard Bergmann Fair Play Prize.
• The new time rule was not always applied consistently. The 4-set match between Trude Pritzi (Austria) and Angelica Adelstein-Rozeanu (Romania) lasted longer than 1 hour and 45 minutes. It was not canceled because the table was not needed for anything else.
• The Hungarian Tibor Házi was not included in the World Cup team, although he was the reigning champion of Hungary and Budapest. He had changed club - and they resented that.
• The United States is the first country to win the men's and women's team competitions at the same time.
• For the first time a “ special table tennis stamp ” is issued.

Results

competition	rank	winner
Team men	1.	USA ( James McClure , Sol Schiff , Abe Berenbaum, Robert Blattner )
	2.	Hungary ( Miklós Szabados , László Bellák , Victor Barna , Ferenc Soós , Istvan Lovaszy)
	3.	Czechoslovakia ( Adolf Slar , Pavel Lowy, Miloslav Hamer , Stanislav Kolář , Bohumil Váňa )
	4th	Austria ( Richard Bergmann , Helmut Göbel , Hans Hartinger , Alfred Liebster , Papazian)
	11.	Germany ( Heinz Benthien , Georg Kutz , Erwin Münchow , Helmut Ulrich )
Team women	1.	USA ( Ruth Hughes Aarons , Emily Fuller, Dolores Probert-Kuenz, Jessie Purves)
	2.	Germany ( Astrid Hobohm , Hilde Bussmann , Annemarie Schulz )
	3.	Czechoslovakia ( Vlasta Depetrisová , Podhajecka, Marie Kettnerová , Věra Votrubcová )
	4th	Austria (Zita Lemo, Gertrude Pritzi , Von Benes, Gertrude Wildam )
Men's singles	1.	Richard Bergmann - AUT
	2.	Aloizy Ehrlich - POL
	3.	Ferenc Soós - HUN
	3.	Hans Hartinger - AUT
Ladies singles	1.	Since 2001 the ITTF has named Ruth Hughes Aarons (USA) and Trude Pritzi (AUT) as co-world champions in the final
Men's doubles	1.	Robert Blattner / James McClure - USA
	2.	Richard Bergmann / Helmut Goebel - AUT
	3.	Václav Tereba / Frantisek Hanec Pivec - TCH
	3.	Adolf Slar / Miloslav Hamer - TCH
Ladies doubles	1.	Vlasta Depetrisová / Věra Votrubcová - TCH
	2.	Margaret Osborne / Wendy Woodhead - ENG
	3.	Lillian Hutchings - ENG / Stefanie Werle - AUT
	3.	Marie Kettnerová - TCH / Annemarie Schulz - GER
Mixed	1.	Bohumil Váňa / Věra Votrubcová - TCH
	2.	Stanislav Kolář / Marie Kettnerová - TCH
	3.	Abe Berenbaum / Emily Fuller - USA
	3.	Geza Eros / Angelica Adelstein-Rozeanu - ROM

Medal table

rank	country	gold	silver	bronze	total
1	United States	4th	0	1	5
2	Czechoslovakia	2	1	4.5	7.5
3	Austria	2	1	1.5	4.5
4th	Hungary	0	1	1	2
5	German Empire	0	1	0.5	1.5
5	England	0	1	0.5	1.5
7th	Poland	0	1	0	1
7th	Romania	0	0	1	1
Total		8th	6th	10	24

Web links

• Entry in ITTF database
• Film contribution to the table tennis world championship 1937, part of a Hungarian newsreel (in the archive of the Hungarian National Film Institute)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Often - also in the ITTF database - the name is given as "Hamr". In Czech sources, however, the spelling “Hamer” can be found: film database , ping-pong