was a Japanese international

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

From 1955 to 1957 he won several medals in singles, doubles, and team events in the

World Table Tennis Championships The World Table Tennis Championships are table tennis competitions sanctioned by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). The World Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957. Five individual events, which include men ...

. He also won an

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 ...

title. The nine World Championship medals included five

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

s; two in the singles at the 1955 World Table Tennis Championships and

1957 World Table Tennis Championships The 1957 World Table Tennis Championships were held in Stockholm from March 7 to March 15, 1957. Medalists Team Individual References External linksITTF Museum {{World Table Tennis Championships World Table Tennis Championships World ...

and three in the team event for Japan.

Legacy

After the 1955 World Championships Tanaka became popular in the Netherlands, where on 30 May 1969 Rien van Thoor and Marius van Rijckevorsel established the table tennis club ''TTV Tanaka'' in

Etten-Leur Etten-Leur () is a municipality in the Dutch province North Brabant. Its name is a combination of the two villages from which the municipality originally acrose: Etten and Leur. History The villages were always part of one municipality, originally ...

. The club still exists and never changed its name.TTV Tanaka News
tanaka.nl. February 2013. In 1997 Tanaka was inducted into the

ITTF Hall of Fame This page lists the members inducted in the ITTF Hall of Fame – founded in 1993 – in the order as they appear in the official hall of fame maintained by the International Table Tennis Federation. The ITTF Hall of Fame includes both table tennis ...

References

Japanese male table tennis players 1935 births 1998 deaths Asian Games medalists in table tennis Table tennis players at the 1958 Asian Games Asian Games silver medalists for Japan Medalists at the 1958 Asian Games Sportspeople from Hokkaido {{Japan-tabletennis-bio-stub

Table tennis career

Legacy

See also

References