Word: pinging
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...champion courts recognition; the hustler flees it. Only one sport is so obscure yet so popular that an ace can play both roles simultaneously. The game is Ping Pong; the hustling ace is Marty Reisman. Even in the '50s, when Reisman held the U.S. singles and doubles titles, he was unknown to more than a handful of table tennis freaks. To supplement his income, he played exhibition matches between halves of the Globetrotters' basketball games and conned wealthy amateurs into believing that they could beat him if he gave away 19 points and sat in a chair...
...could fill his wallet and his mouth by legitimate means. At his peak, Reisman was the best hard-racket man in the world. Today, at 44, he can be beaten only by players using trick spins off the modern soft-sponge paddle. As the champ says, his kind of Ping Pong is entirely unlike the metronomic rec-room game familiar to most Americans. World-class players can propel the ball at speeds exceeding 100 m.p.h.; facing them across a table is like batting against Nolan Ryan from a distance...
...quirks that decorate their egos like gargoyles on a tower. Richard Bergmann, the late English titlist, once searched in vain for the perfect sphere; he went through three gross of balls before he found one worthy of him. Alex Ehrlich, the Polish prodigy, could discern no life purpose beyond Ping Pong. To this day, when he finds a promising young player he counsels, "Now the first thing you must do is quit school...
Given the champ's current reputation, there is a crocodilian element to his plaint, "I am probably better known in Singapore than in the United States." It is that very anonymity that allows him to pursue his chosen field. Recently, in his own Manhattan Ping Pong parlor, Reisman greeted a player who had journeyed uptown to knock off the old pro in Billy the Kid style. Reisman, attired in boots, electric blue suit and matching cap, hesitated. His arm ached, he said, his vision was blurred. Nevertheless, he agreed to spot his opponent 15 points per game. After...
Balancing Wang's meteoric rise, moreover, was the re-emergence of several pragmatic bureaucrats who had been discarded during the Cultural Revolution - most important, former Party General Secretary Teng Hsiao-ping, now a Vice Premier, who in recent months has taken over many of Chou's diplomatic functions. Teng is one of four high-ranking officials (referred to by some Sinologists as "the Four Horsemen of Peking") who are expected collectively to assume Chou's manifold responsibilities if the Premier should pass from the scene. The others: Li Hsien-nien, a jowly, rumpled former Finance Minister, whose...