Martin 'Marty' Reisman (February 1, 1930 – December 7, 2012) was an American champion

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 ...

player and author. He was the 1958 and 1960 U.S. Men's singles champion and the 1997 U.S. hardbat champion.

Table tennis career

Reisman started playing table tennis at the age of 12 in Manhattan's Lower East Side, and then as a hustler in New York in the 1940s, playing for bets and prizes, notably at Lawrence's Broadway Table Tennis Club at

54th Street 54th Street is a two-mile-long (3.2 km), one-way street traveling west to east across Midtown Manhattan. Notable places, west to east Twelfth Avenue *The route begins at Twelfth Avenue ( New York Route 9A). Opposite the intersection is the N ...

and Broadway. Comedian

Jonathan Katz Jonathan Paul Katz (born December 1, 1946) is an American actor and comedian best known for his starring role in the animated sitcom '' Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist'' as Dr. Katz. He also is known for voicing Erik Robbins in the UPN/Adult S ...

recalled that he met and played against Reisman when he was a youth and that Reisman was an amazing athlete, and that he was once beaten by him with the flat end of a chess piece. He won five bronze medals at 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 m ...

, starting with a men's team event bronze at 1948 World Table Tennis Championships, followed by three medals at the 1949 World Table Tennis Championships in the men's singles, the men's team and the mixed doubles with Peggy McLean. His fifth medal came in 1952 in the men's doubles with Douglas Cartland at the

1952 World Table Tennis Championships The 1952 World Table tennis, Table Tennis Championships were held in Mumbai, Bombay from 1 to 10 February 1952.The 1952 World Championships were marked by the arrival of the Japanese as a Table Tennis force on the world scene. In another first t ...

. He and Cartland performed a comedy table tennis routine as the opening act for the Harlem Globetrotters. Reisman won 22 major table tennis titles from 1946 to 2002, including two United States Opens and a British Open. In later life, Reisman continued to be one of the most visible presences and known personalities in the table tennis world. He became the oldest player to win an open national competition in a racket sport by winning the 1997 United States National Hardbat Championship at the age of 67, and was the president of Table Tennis Nation at the time of his death in December 2012. Reisman was

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

Bibliography

Reisman's autobiography, ''The Money Player, The Confessions of America's Greatest Table Tennis Player and Hustler'' was published in 1974. Publisher: Morrow,

References

External links

Table Tennis Nation

at USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame. Accessed November 2006.
Interview With Marty Reisman
at USA Table Tennis By Tyra Parkins 2001. Accessed November 2006.

article at hardbat.com

Nearly Made A Giant-killer Of The Author, by Parton Keese

by Ray Kennedy

in The New York Times {{DEFAULTSORT:Reisman, Marty 1930 births 2012 deaths Jewish American sportspeople Jewish table tennis players American male table tennis players World Table Tennis Championships medalists 21st-century American Jews

Table tennis career

Bibliography

See also

References

External links