| Judy Williams | |
| Nationality: | British (English) |
| Birth Date: | 25 February 1944 |
| Birth Place: | Colney Heath Hertfordshire, England |
| Death Date: | 16 August 2024 (aged 80) |
| Death Place: | Amsterdam, Netherlands |
Judith Yvonne Williams (25 February 1944 – 16 August 2024)[1] was a British international table tennis player from England[2] who also played in the Netherlands. She played in several World Table Tennis Championships and Veterans World Championships and won the English National Table Tennis Championships in 1969.
Judy was born in Colney Heath near St Albans in Hertfordshire, England in 1944. Shortly after World War II her parents Bill and Marjorie bought and began running the Dagmar House Hotel in Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Her father built a pre-fabricated games room in the hotel garden which was just large enough to meet international table tennis standards, and it was there that Judy and her brother Peter, also later an international player, learned to play table tennis. Teams were formed at the hotel and allowed to play in the Welwyn Hatfield league, and Williams won the U15 national girls championship in 1959.[1]
Judy attended St Albans Girls Grammar School and later went to Birmingham University.
Williams made her international debut for England in January 1960 and won the Sussex Championships nine times.[3] She played in her first world championships at the 1963 World Table Tennis Championships,[1] and won the singles title at the Universities' Championship in 1964.[4]
She represented England at the 1969 World Table Tennis Championships in the Corbillon Cup (women's team event) with Karenza Mathews, Jill Shirley and Mary Shannon-Wright.[5] [6]
She was also the 1969 English National Table Tennis Championships singles champion.
In 1988 she was runner up in the Over 40s women's singles and doubles events at the World Veterans Championships in Zagreb, and in 2001, won a bronze medal in the Over 50s European Veterans Championships in Denmark.[1]
Williams worked as a translator for Shell Oil and moved to Amsterdam in the mid-1970s. She married Kemal Çelik in 1981, but they divorced in 1999.
She died at the nursing home Eben Haezer, Wisseloord, Amsterdam.[1]