Angelica Rozeanu - Biography

Angelica Rozeanu (October 15, 1921, in Bucharest, Romania – February 22, 2006, in Haifa, Israel) was a Romanian table tennis player of Jewish origin, and one of the most successful female table tennis players in the history of the sport.

Table tennis career

She started playing table tennis at the age of 8. She had scarlet fever and when convalescing her brother Gaston, almost eight years her elder, came home with table tennis bats, balls, and a net to entertain her.

At the age of 12 she won the Romanian Cup. She won her first major title, the Romanian national women's championship, at the age of 15 in 1936. She remained Romania's female champion for the next 21 years (1936–57; excluding the war years 1940–45, when she did not compete).

In 1938 she won her first major international competition at the Hungarian Open.

Interrupted by World War II, from 1940 to 1944 she was barred from even entering a gymnasium in Romania, she played virtually no table tennis from the age of 18 to the age of 23.

Rozeanu won her first World Championship in 1950, starting the winning run that would see her win the championship six years in succession, a feat yet to be matched. She was also the last non-Asian woman to win the title.

In total, she won 17 world titles (and 12 silver and bronze medals at the World Championships), including the world's women's doubles title three times (1953–55; in 1953 with Giselle Farkas of Hungary and in 1954 and 1955 with Ella Zeller of Romania), and the world mixed doubles titles three times (1951–53; 1951, with Bohumil Vana of Czechoslovakia, and in 1952 and 1953, with Ferenc Sido of Hungary.).

She was the first Romanian woman to win a World title in any sport. Being by far Romania's greatest profile in the sport, she was also the President of the Romanian Table Tennis Commission from 1950 to 1960.

Appointed as a Deputy of the Bucharest Municipality in 1955, she and other Jewish players found themselves forced out of the Romanian Federation in 1957 when an anti-Semite rose to the chairman position.

In 1960 Rozeanu moved to Israel, where she continued to play professionally. In 1961 she won the Maccabiah Games Table Tennis Championship and she was Israel's champion three times, between 1960–62.

She kept in touch with her native Romania, and visited it for the last time in 2005.

In 2006 she died at the age of 84.

Playing style

Her abilities were revealed less in the power of her shots than in her exceptional footwork, ball control, determination, grace, natural ability, and technique. . She knew when to attack and when to defend, exhibiting unnerving patience during even the longest points. The Second World War disrupted the international game, but she returned to competition with a more attacking style.

Recognition

In 1954, Angelica Rozeanu was presented the highest sports distinction in Romania — the title of Merited Master of Sport. She also received four Order of Work honors from her government.

In 1997 she was awarded the Knesset Medal.

She was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Haifa in 2001.

Halls of Fame

• Rozeanu was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1981.
• Rozeanu was inducted into the International Table Tennis Foundation Hall of Fame in 1995.