In any competitive endeavor, the only real metric for success is winning. Seems simple enough, right? If you win the most, you must be the best. Alas, historical analysis is never so simple, but is instead fraught with confounding variables, impossible comparisons and good old "what if"s. Ask any casual sports fan (and anyone over 30) who the greatest basketball player of all time is, and most will answer Michael Jordan. There are, however, nine players in NBA history with more championships than Jordan's six. While few would argue that seven-time champ Robert Horry was a better player than Jordan, he does win in the winning department. Similarly in table tennis, a poll of casual fans would produce a wide variety of answers and endless debate. Some say Jan-Ove Waldner is the G.O.A.T., but his two men's singles championships lag far behind Ma Long, Wang Liqin, and Zhuang Zedong with three each. Then there is Richard Bergmann with four, and Viktor Barna with five. So who is the greatest? Cue the confounding variables: Bergmann and Barna played in the era when the World Championships were held every year, so they had more opportunities to win. Bergmann, however, lost seven years of his prime to World War II, which halted play from 1940-46. Amazingly, he won two titles before the war and still came back to win two titles afterward. All the speculation can be laid to rest, however, when the discussion turns to the greatest winner of all time: Angelica Rozeanu of Romania. Among her 17 world titles were a staggering six (!) successive (!!!) women's singles titles, 1950-55. It was not a rosy road for Rozeanu. Born in 1921, she picked up table tennis at age eight when stuck at home with scarlet fever. An exponent of the defensive style preferred in the pre-sponge era, she danced around the court, chopping everything back until either her opponent missed or she cracked a surprise forehand topspin counter for a winner. Rozeanu was just hitting her stride as a player when she saw her native Romania fall under Nazi control in 1940. Due to her Jewish faith, she was banned from playing in Romania's gymnasiums until 1944, when Romania switched sides to fight with the Allies. "In 1945 I had to start from scratch," said recalled Rozeanu after the war. "I had almost forgotten how to play; it took me several months to regain any form." It would be another two years before the World Championships would resume. Rozeanu therefore lost what most coaches would consider the prime playing years: 19 to 25. Subtract the productivity from those years from the 10 Grand Slam winners (Olympics, World Championships, and World Cup) and only two (Zhang Yining and Ma Long) retain the distinction. In other words, Rozeanu is still the most dominant player in the history of the game, even after losing her prime playing years to hatred and violence. She eventually moved to Israel, where she was a three-time national champion. She passed away in 2006 at the age of 84. We would do well to remember Angelica Rozeanu's resilience as we now lose playing time due to circumstances beyond ourselves control. As Rozeanu herself put it, "I preferred table tennis or perhaps, if you like, table tennis preferred me." If you too find yourself preferred by table tennis, you're already a winner. Just don't go getting too cocky-- no one can beat Angelica Rozeanu.

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