Seniors Turn the Tables on Aging

With all the grace of a teenage athlete, Nancy Kellner glides in front of her partner and drills a backhand winner deep into the right corner of the tennis table, catching her flat-footed rival off guard.

“Nice shot, Nancy,” her impressed opponent conceded Saturday, collecting the bright orange ball after it ricocheted off a back wall and tossing it over the net for the next serve.

Kellner, a great-grandmother who is eight years shy of 100, was the oldest player in the Leisure World clubhouse as the Laguna Woods table-tennis team hosted the Leisure World team from Seal Beach in a friendly doubles exhibition tournament.

“I can’t believe I’m 92. I play this game much better than I walk now,” Kellner said. “Strange, huh?”

Kellner was paired with Frank Buchanan, who is three years her junior and--he acknowledges--quicker with his wit than his paddle or his feet.

“Get ready to laugh,” he joked as their first match was about to begin. “If you want lessons, don’t come to us.”

The Laguna Woods table-tennis club boasts 365 members of different talent levels. Most players are at least well into their 70s, according to president Art Wirtschafter. “I’m one of the kids. And I’m 75,” he said with a smirk.

Nearly every weekend, the club hosts a tournament or travels to another Southern California city to compete in one. Pasadena is the next visitor on the schedule.

Many of the club’s members can--and regularly do--qualify for national events.

Olga Feingold Kahan and her husband, Stanley Kahan, for example, are headed to Baton Rouge, La., in July for the senior table-tennis Olympics.

For more than two hours Saturday, members of both Leisure World teams demonstrated just how timeless the sport can be, with players dashing back and forth like kids to keep rallies alive, between back-spinning shots and bad bounces.

“Anybody can play at any age,” said Herb Gilbert, 81, who teamed with his friend Harry Bloom, 87, for a win in the first round.

Afterward, the pair recalled how they won a national title in Las Vegas in 1983.

“We beat a pair of 30-year-olds,” Gilbert said. “They walked away from the table shaking their heads.”

In between the staccato of pings and pongs, the slicing serves and the overhand smashes, there was plenty of lighthearted banter.

“Make these youngsters run,” a spectator yelled out as Kellner and Buchanan played their first match, which they eventually lost in two close games.

Kellner, a retired schoolteacher who didn’t pick up a paddle until she was 64, said she plays the game mostly for fun and to stay in shape.

“I’m competitive,” she said. “But win or lose, I don’t really care. Because it’s my exercise.”