Adolf Herskovic

Adolf "Dolfi" Herskovic (né Heršković; later Allan Herskovic; 20 April 1916 – 26 February 2011) was an international table tennis player born in Croatia who competed for Yugoslavia in the 1930s, Italy in the 1940s and the United States in the 1970s.

Early life Born in 1916 in Zagreb into a Croatian Jewish family, in what was then Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia within Austria-Hungary, Heršković first started doing sports in the interwar period at the local Maccabi Zagreb Jewish sports society, which was at the time the most successful Jewish sports club in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

As a member of Maccabi Zagreb in the late 1930s Heršković rose to prominence as one of the best players in Yugoslavia, and competed with the national team at the 1937, 1938, and 1939 World Championships. Hexner, Dolinar and Marinko were all members of the Zagreb-based HAŠK, a multi-sports society affiliated with the University of Zagreb.

In his first post-war tournament, the 1948 World Table Tennis Championships in Wembley, Italy was drawn into a group with Yugoslavia, so Herskovic played against his pre-war teammate Žarko Dolinar who represented Yugoslavia, captained by another former teammate, Tibor Harangozo. Neither Italy nor Yugoslavia progressed to the semi-finals, but Max Marinko—another member of the Yugoslav silver team from 1939—won a gold medal playing for Czechoslovakia.

In the early 1950s Herskovic changed his first name to Allan, emigrated to the United States, and opened an electric shaver store in El Cerrito, California.

In the United States he was a member of the Jewish Athletic Club, and also played soccer and did gymnastics.