This new kind of rubber - it will always seem new to me, though it has been in use since the early fifties - completely changed the game of table tennis, and it has been Reisman's bête noir since it was first introduced. Reisman, the winner of the English Open in 1949 - then the most prestigious title next to that of world champion - was poised to win the world championship a few years later, in 1952. It was, he thought, his year. But, in an early round, he faced an unknown Japanese player named Hiroji Satoh, whose racquet was covered with this strange new rubber - three-quarters of an inch of foam - which no one had ever seen. Reisman writes in "The Money Player," "Outfielders in baseball often can judge the flight of a ball from the crack it makes as it comes off the bat. So too can table tennis players judge the velocity of a ball by the noise it makes when it is struck by the opponent's racket. . . . But against Satoh there was no sound." Because of the catapult-like quality of his equipment, Satoh, who wasn't even one of the best players on the Japanese team, was able to use Reisman's own attacking-style game against him. Reisman's shots "sank into the foam rubber of Satoh's racket and were flung back at me with amazing force. . . . I was throwing lethal punches and hitting myself in the face." Reisman had shown up with a bow and arrow, and his opponent came armed with an automatic rifle - and it won him the world title.

Wer je mit dem bescheidenen Equipment eines Hobbyisten gegen einen Spieler mit Profischläger angetreten ist, kennt dieses Gefühl ganz genau. Machtlosigkeit, schiere Machtlosigkeit.