Dave Ziemann in Senior Singles

In the qualification games I won 6 out of 8 games but with a high goal difference to seed 3rd out of 24 players.

I beat Conjour of Netherlands 7-4 on Roberto, Delabarre of France 7-4 on Tornado, Benz of Austria 7-2 on Bonzini, Bud Spredeman of USA 7-2 on Bonzini, Brito of Portugal 7-4 on Bonzini and Jager of Germany 7-4 on Tornado.

And I lost 5-7 to Jet on Tornado, and 6-7 to Baelen of France on Roberto.

In the elimination stage I felt it was a shame to come up against Des O’Rourke of Ireland in the first round. He is a very good and a tricky player at the best of times, with a great push shot on Tornado and a dead solid defence, so things looked very bad when he took the first game off me 4-5 on Garlando, my table choice.

But this was a best of 5 match, and I won the 2nd on Tornado 5-4, and then the next two games 5-3 and 5-2, scoring some decisive 2-bar pulls on Tornado.

The quarter final match against Pirlet was a ridiculously long, gruelling and confused affair. It went on far too long, we both broke a number of rules, albeit unintentionally, and there was confusion about the score and also how many points we were playing to. It was a true ‘senior’ match and I wish it had had a referee.

After winning two games I remember saying to him, OK that’s 2-0 now right, and he said no you mean 2-1. I was confused about the game score but thought he was right. Anyway, it went to a 5th game, and it went on and on. Jean-Pierre only had 2 grips and every time we swapped tables, after every 2 balls, he had to remove his grips and re-grip on the other table. He was taking way too long, and while he re-gripped, I practiced on the table, thinking we were between GAMES when in fact we were just between BALLS after a table change.

We passed the 4-4 point and we both thought we were playing first to 8. It just went on and on ball for ball. So when I scored the 8th goal at 7-7 we both thought I’d won and he shook my hand. But then someone pointed out that we should have been playing infinite 2 clear. But then Jean-Pierre also said to me that anyway he was unsure that the score was 2-1 when I’d asked him earlier in the game, and he declared me the winner. Later on I think I worked out that the game score must have been correct, but by then I was even confused about which table we’d started on, and anyway it was too late by then. So it all ended unfortunately, but whatever really happened or should have happened, Jean-Pierre came out of it very honourably, and we consider each other friends.

This result meant I was playing the German singles specialist Johann Wahl in the semi-final. Somehow I just didn’t give him a game, and he took me apart 4-5, 3-5, 1-5 to leave me in 3rd place, disappointed not to have had a chance at Uli, but pleased with a podium finish.