Alojzy Ehrlich

Aloizy "Alex" Ehrlich ( * 1914 in Komańcza; † 7 December 1992 in Saint- Denis ) was a French table tennis player of Polish descent. He was three times runner-up in singles.

Active Time in Poland

Alex Ehrlich grew up in France, however, represented Poland 1934-1949 eight times at the World Championships. He won three times the silver medal in the individual: he was defeated in the playoffs in 1936 the Czechs Stanislav Kolář as well as 1937 and 1939 respectively the Austrian Richard Bergmann. With the Polish team he won bronze in 1935 and 1936.

In 1934 he was chosen in the choice of the ten best Polish athletes to 8th place. 1939 Ehrlich trained the Egyptian national team in preparation for the World Cup.

Ehrlich was a Jew. This prompted him to emigrate ( 1949-1951 ) in France. After the Second World War it was because he lived abroad, declared by the Polish national persona non grata.

Active Time in France

In 1936 he was British champion and 1937 and 1939 French. From 1952 to 1963 Ehrlich was nominated six times for France for the World Championships. In 1957, he reached the quarterfinals in singles.

Other successes

1934/35 was Alex Ehrlich Polish champion. In addition, he still won several times at international championships:

Legendary rally

Legendary was Ehrlich's match against 1936 the Romanians Farkas Paneth, because it took more than two hours. This led - among other long matches - 1937 to introduce the time rule, which is intended to limit the duration of a game.

In the Table Tennis World Championships 1936 in Prague, the teams from Poland and Romania competed against each other. Here Ehrlich had to deal with the defender Farkas Paneth. Paneth expected that Ehrlich would attack. Instead, this schupfte the ball only to Paneth backhand side. Paneth, in turn, returned again and again to Ehrlich's backhand. This rally lasted two hours and twelve minutes. The ball was there, according to several sources 9000-12000 times over the net. The rally ended when Ehrlich played the ball accidentally on Paneth's forehand side; Paneth verschlug this ball

The players presented the situation that led to the first point after 132 minutes different dar. Ehrlich claimed that the ball would uncontrollably flew him from finger on Paneth's forehand. Paneth, however, made ​​a banana peel, which fell from the gallery on a side table, responsible for his failure.

According to contemporary reports ten referees were replaced during this longest rally. Honestly ate a few sausages with bread and mustard, without interrupting the game. He also is said to have casually played a game of chess.

About the further progress of this game, there are different representations. Some sources indicate that the rest of the first set of Ehrlich was obtained in a relatively short time with 21:6, as the second set with 21:8. Other sources state that the second rally took another 20 minutes. Then Paneth threw his bat after Alex Ehrlich and left unnerved the hall. The match was canceled at the registry of 2-0 in the first set.

After the active career

After the end of his active career Alex Ehrlich worked in many countries as a coach. Also, some German clubs were trained by him, for example, in 1952 the best players of Bavaria.

He developed a table tennis robot, which he presented in Malmö 1964. In France he ran a holiday center with table tennis training offerings.

In December 1992, Alex Ehrlich died in hospital of Saint- Denis.

Results from the ITTF database