2012 London to London

outstandingly successful in tournaments
in the previous season but the result
was closer than expected. They won
5-4, mainly because Percy Bromfield, the
English No. 1, failed to win even a single
game. He was dropped for the next
match, against Austria, which England
won by the same score.
Meanwhile Hungary demonstrated its
strength, easily defeating India, England
and Wales. Its team included both
Roland Jacobi and Zoltan Mechlovits,
who were later to contest the final
of the men’s singles; they each lost
only one individual match in the team
competition, both to the same player,
Paul Flussmann of Austria.
Czechoslovakia’s only success was a
five-four win over Germany, who won
no matches and these two teams both
ended in the bottom places of the group.
Wales lost to Austria and Hungary but
defeated Czechoslovakia and Germany
and lost only narrowly to England and
India.
make Hungary the first holders of the
Swaythling Cup.
There were 64 entries in the men’s
singles, where there appears to have
been some curious seeding. There were
six first round matches in which both
players were listed as national seeds,
but nine in which neither player was
seeded.
The quarter-finalists in the men’s singles
comprised three Indians, Fyzee, Suppiah
and Ernest, two Hungarians, Mechlovits
and Jacobi, two Austrians, Pillinger
and Freudenheim - the latter having
reached this stage by means of a series
of walkovers - and a Welsh player, B.
Penny.
Photo: ETTA Archives
London, the Home of Table Tennis
The final group match between Hungary
and Austria was not decided until the
last possible game of the last individual
match, in which Munio Pillinger of
Austria beat Dani Pecsi of Hungary 21-
19. It meant that Austria and Hungary
led the group with five wins each,
somewhat to the embarrassment of the
organisers, who had not foreseen this
possibility.
They had to arrange a play-off match
at the Memorial Hall on Monday
13th December. Hungary’s team was
weakened by the absence of Jacobi,
who had had to return home owing
to the death of his father but his
replacement, Bela von Kehrling, won
the deciding match against Pillinger to
Maria Mednyanszky, 1926
Women’s Singles Champion
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