Laszlo Bellak (February 12, 1911 – September 20, 2006) was a Hungarian and
American 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.
Table tennis career
He represented Hungary 59 times in international competition.
He won 21 medals at the World Championships, seven of which were gold. This included six wins as a member of the Hungarian National Team that won the
Swaythling Cup in 1928, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1935, and 1938.
Bellak moved to the United States at the start of World War II, and enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving in India and Burma.
He was decorated three times, and was honorably discharged with the Victory Medal, attaining the rank of Sergeant.
He won the U.S. Men’s Singles title in 1938, the U.S. Men’s Doubles in 1937, 1939, and 1943, and the U.S. Mixed Doubles in 1941.
He also won three
English Open
The English Open was a professional golf tournament held in England. First played in 1988, it was an annual event on the European Tour until 2002. After several aborted attempts at reviving the tournament, it returned to the tour schedule in 20 ...
titles.
Halls of Fame
Bellak was inducted into the USA Table Tennis Hall of Fame in 1980
and the International Table Tennis Foundation Hall of Fame in 1993.
Bellak, who was
Jew
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""T ...
ish, was inducted into the
International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame
The International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame ( he, יד לאיש הספורט היהודי, translit=Yad Le'ish HaSport HaYehudi) was opened July 7, 1981 in Netanya, Israel. It honors Jewish athletes and their accomplishments from anywhere arou ...
in 1995.
He was inducted into the Florida Table Tennis Hall of Fame in 1996.
Book
He authored ''Table Tennis—How A New Sport Was Born: The History of the Hungarian Team Winning 73 Gold Medals'' (1990).
[ ]
See also
*
List of select Jewish table tennis players
References
External links
Jews in Sports bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bellak, Lazlo
Table tennis players from Budapest
Hungarian male table tennis players
American male table tennis players
1911 births
2006 deaths
Hungarian Jews
Hungarian emigrants to the United States
American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
Jewish table tennis players