Progressing from junior to senior level is a difficult task, many fail the examination and fall by the wayside but in Grand Rapids in July 2010 it was Graduation Day for Hungary’s charming Georgina Pota.

Winner of the Women’s Singles title at the recent United States Open, Hungary’s 25 year old Georgina Pota, sponsored by the forward thinking Killerspin Company, once again was centre stage and in the limelight; it’s not necessarily something she craves, it’s something that follows her wherever she goes, whether she wins or loses.

World Junior Championships

In 2003 seated in a restaurant in downtown Santiago, following the conclusion of the first ever World Junior Table Tennis Championships, she sat at the very end of the table waiting to hear the winner’s name being announced. It seemed as though she was afraid she might win, she did not want to be the centre of attention but she was; she won.

She was the clear winner but the victory had nothing whatsoever to do with her ability at table tennis, or any other sport for that matter. She won the title of being the Princess of the Tournament, a hastily arranged award made by the Organising Committee as a successful tournament came to a conclusion and adrenalin flowed freely through the bodies of the administrators.

Chile had delivered and somewhat embarrassed, Georgina accepted the award with good grace.

No Superbrat

Compared often with the tennis star, Anna Kornikova, the Hungarian also stands out from the crowd and maintains the best traditions of sport; there are no shows of ill manners or bad temper.

“You cannot be serious” in latter day guise of John McEnroe going ballistic at an official is not the demeanour of Georgina Pota. She is the antithesis; she is the girl-next-door, the girl every mother hopes her son will marry.

Ask her for an interview she immediately declares that she cannot speak English but then answers every question perfectly in Magyar tone with a delightful natural smile. She is not being rude or bad mannered in any way whatsoever when she displays a reticence.

It’s just Georgina, she is the hard working girl in a class of 30 students who completes her work neatly, carefully and diligently but never says boo to a goose. She is what you see, nothing false.

Very Special

The message is that she believes she is not special but of course she is special, very special; she is a table tennis player of high order, an international who competes on the world stage and she represents a country where there is intense competition for places.

Until the 1997 World Championships in Manchester, the country with the most medals gained at World Championships was Hungary, now that mantle has moved to China and against the Chinese Georgina Pota has proved herself a formidable adversary.

Against attacking players she is at her best, when it is fast and furious, Georgina Pota excels. Close to the table, giving her opponents minimal time to react has seen the Hungarian establish herself amongst the foremost female players in Europe.

European Junior Titles

In 2002, those skills were very much in evident in the Russian capital city of Moscow when at the European Youth Championships she clinched the Junior Girls’ Singles crown, beating the Czech Republic’s Martina Smistikova in the final.

Earlier, in 1999 in the Czech city of Frydek-Mistek, she had won the Cadet Mixed Doubles title with Daniel Zwickl; whilst in 2001 she had been a member of the successful Hungarian outfit who won gold in the Junior Girls’ team competition.

However, the victory in 2002 by winning the Junior Girls’ Singles crown was more pertinent. Look at the names of those who have gained gold in cadet events at the European Youth Championships; many never progressed to senior international level, they fell by the wayside.

The failure rate is alarmingly high.

On the contrary, examine the names of those who succeeded at junior level and the conversation rate is much higher; the one and only Jan-Ove Waldner was never crowned Cadet Boys’ Singles champion at the annual European gathering but he won the Junior Boys’ Singles crown a record three times and went on become a living table tennis legend.

Senior Success

Perhaps not quite to the same extent as Jan-Ove Waldner but nevertheless, Georgina Pota has blossomed in her senior career and there are many years to go.

Success at junior level – she won ITTF Junior Circuit Girls’ Singles titles in 2002 in Peru and the following year in Sweden – now she is achieving on the senior stage.

Graduation is a difficult process but methodically the Hungarian is gaining honours by degrees.

In 2005 she made a breakthrough on the ITTF Pro Tour at the Brazilian Open in the city of Rio de Janeiro; she won the Women’s Doubles title with Germany’s Tanj Hain-Hoffmann and beat the latter’s colleague, Kristin Silbereisen in the final of the Under 21 Women’s Singles event.

The success in the beautiful Brazilian city was a watershed; further success followed later in the year when she won the Women’s Doubles crown in St Petersburg with Kristina Toth and that was quite a notable victory.

At the final hurdle the pair defeated Viktoria Pavlovich and Veronika Pavlovich of Belarus in the final. The style of Veronika is very much to the liking of Georgina Pota being an attacking topspin player, the style of Viktoria is not; by her own admission Georgina Pota does not enjoy confronting the defensive art.

However, in that respect she is improving but for her she prefers Formula One Table Tennis, fast and furious, playing in top gear is her forte.

Learning the Art

Nevertheless, as she matures, she is learning that you cannot just win table tennis matches by trying to play faster that Usain Bolt sprints; you have to work out matters, think for yourself and devise strategies.

In that respect the 2003 Princess of Santiago is improving by the day.

She qualified for the Liebherr Europe Top Twelve in 2005 and 2008 whilst at the Beijing Olympic Games, she was one of the few European plays to shine in a competition dominated by Asian excellence.

Meanwhile, she now has European titles to her credit at senior level as well as at junior level; in 2007 at the Liebherr European Championships in Belgrade, she was a vital member of the Hungarian gold medal winnning team whilst one year later in St Petersburg she was crowned European Women’s Doubles champion with Krisztina Toth.

Now, she has a major singles crown to her credit; she is the 2010 United States Open Women’s Singles champion; a new milestone in the career of Georgina Pota has been reached.