Mária Mednyánszky (7 April 1901

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

– 22 December 1978 also Budapest) was a Hungarian international

table tennis Table tennis, also known as ping-pong and whiff-whaff, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball, also known as the ping-pong ball, back and forth across a table using small solid rackets. It takes place on a hard table div ...

star.

Table tennis career

She became the first official women's world champion winning the women's singles event

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

in the first edition of the

World Table Tennis Championships The World Table Tennis Championships are table tennis competitions sanctioned by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). The World Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957. Five individual events, which include men ...

, held in 1926 at

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. She went on to win the title for five successive years and won a further 18 world titles. Only

Angelica Rozeanu Angelica Rozeanu (née Adelstein) (15 October 1921 – 21 February 2006) was a Romanian table tennis player of Jewish origin, the most successful female table tennis player in the history of the sport, winning the women's world singles title 6 ye ...

holds more women's singles titles than her. She won seven doubles titles including six consecutive wins with

Anna Sipos Anna Sipos (3 April 1908 – 1 January 1988) was a Hungarian international table tennis player. Table tennis career She won 21 medals in the World Table Tennis Championships Eleven of these were gold medals. including six consecutive women's dou ...

. She also won three

English Open The English Open was a professional golf tournament held in England. First played in 1988, it was an annual event on the European Tour until 2002. After several aborted attempts at reviving the tournament, it returned to the tour schedule in 20 ...

titles.

Awards

She was awarded the

Golden Order of the Hungarian People's Republic Golden means made of, or relating to gold. Golden may also refer to: Places United Kingdom *Golden, in the parish of Probus, Cornwall *Golden Cap, Dorset *Golden Square, Soho, London *Golden Valley, a valley on the River Frome in Gloucestershir ...

in 1976, Hungary's highest sporting honour.

References

Maria Mednyanszky
ITTF Hall of Fame. Accessed September 2007
Maria Mednyanszky
at I GUINNESS DEL TENNISTAVOLO (Italian) Accessed Sept 2007 Hungarian female table tennis players 1901 births 1978 deaths Table tennis players from Budapest {{Hungary-tabletennis-bio-stub

Table tennis career

Awards

See also

References