Recognizing athletes and contributors in the sport of Table Tennis in the United States
New Details Emerge on Michael Ralston’s 1958 Australian Tour
By Sean P. O’Neill, President – U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame
We recently received a remarkable letter from Melbourne, Australia, shedding new light on the international achievements of Hall of Famer Michael Ralston.
Paul Brenner, a longtime Victorian table tennis player and historian, reached out with verified records documenting Ralston’s success during the 1958 U.S. junior tour of Australia with Norbert Van De Walle.
Below is Paul’s letter, shared with his permission.
Letter from Paul Brenner (Melbourne, Australia)
Dear Mr O’Neill,
My name is Paul Brenner. I’m writing to you from Melbourne, Australia, in relation to a member of your Hall of Fame, namely Michael Ralston.
I was surfing the ‘net recently and am interested in the history of table tennis, having played competitively many years ago here in Victoria. I became aware of a tour of Australia in 1958 by two junior American table tennis players—Michael Ralston and Norbert Van De Walle—which occurred a few years before I began to play.
Whilst in Australia, they played three “test matches” against Australia, winning them all. They also competed in both the 1958 Victorian (in Melbourne) and the 1958 National Championships (in Sydney). Van De Walle won the Victorian Men’s Singles, and with Michael Ralston, won the Victorian Men’s Doubles event. Michael Ralston subsequently won the Australian Men’s Singles Championship (defeating A. Robinson) but lost to Cliff McDonald (NSW) in the Junior Singles Championship.
I bring these results to your attention in case you had been unaware of them because Michael Ralston’s achievements under the heading “Other Important Titles” in his bio page in the U.S. Table Tennis Hall of Fame omits any reference to his successes “Down Under.”
The above information may be verified by looking at the 1958 (29th) Annual Report of the Victorian Table Tennis Association, which can be located under “History” at their website: https://www.tabletennisvic.org.au/file/wxaj7szqflpkd8hr.
On a personal note, my curiosity was piqued by the fact that Ralston managed to win the Australian Men’s Open but lose the Australian Open Junior final—the normal expectation being that the results would have been the other way around. Having said that, I should note that Cliff McDonald, who defeated Ralston in the Junior final, was a fine player who, later that year, was selected to play for Australia in the 1959 World Table Tennis Championships. McDonald remained perhaps the best male player in Australia throughout the 1960s, winning many national and state titles. There is little doubt that the best table tennis player in Australia in that decade, and perhaps ever, is Mrs Suzy Javor. She is the only player in our sport to have been inducted into the Sports Australian Hall of Fame.
Oddly enough, in 1965, an unseeded 15-year-old Victorian junior, Leigh Pascoe, replicated Ralston’s achievement. He became the youngest ever winner of the Australian Men’s Singles Championship (and remains so to this day), defeating Cliff McDonald in the final, but lost the final of the Junior Singles Championship—to me.
