The French men’s team qualified for the final of the World Table Tennis Championships, a first since 1997, thanks in particular to its young prodigy Félix Lebrun, by winning 3 to 1 in the half against Taiwan, Saturday in Busan.
A first since 1997: the French men’s table tennis team, led by brothers Félix and Alexis Lebrun, will compete in the final of the World Team Championships on Sunday (12:00 p.m.), against China, the ten-time defending champion, in Busan ( South Korea). “It’s incredible to be in the final, we came to look for a medal. We were N.4 (in the world rankings, Editor’s note), so that was our goal,” said Félix Lebrun at the microphone of the International Federation.
Five months before the Paris-2024 Olympics offering this same team event, the Blues dismissed Taiwan 3-1 on Saturday, thanks to two successes from their 17-year-old diamond, world No. 6 and first non-Chinese in the ranking. This shows the challenge that awaits the siblings and Simon Gauzy on Sunday. The trio will indeed have to get rid of the three best players in the world currently. In order, Fan Zhendong, Wang Chuqin and Ma Long.
“It will be a huge moment to experience, anticipates Alexis Lebrun, the eldest. They are legends but we will have to put it out of our heads. They are adversaries, we will have to go there as a conqueror to try to beat them doubt and seek something great. I believe we are capable of it.” However, gold has everything of the Chinese medal: the last time another nation won, in 2000, the French still paid in francs and the two Lebrun phenomena were not about to be born.
In the footsteps of Gatien
In the meantime, the French triplet joined the third world final in the history of the Blues, after 1948 and therefore 1997, when the team led by the Olympic vice-champion (1992) and world champion (1993) Jean-Philippe Gatien was adorned with silver, which remains the best French team result. Among the medal-winning French table tennis players was also Christophe Legoût, uncle of the Lebrun brothers, two table tennis players aged 17 and 20 whose rise seems limitless.
Except China, no doubt, which has all the ceiling on which to bang your head… even if the Blues will be able to recall that Alexis Lebrun, last April, broke the bank in Macau by bringing down the N.1 world champion Fan Zhendong in the quarter-finals of a WTT Champions tournament. The eldest of the siblings is the first European to have achieved this feat.
His younger brother Félix, with his outdated pen-hold, is in fantastic form in South Korea. On Saturday, he unceremoniously manhandled the Taiwanese Lin Yun-ju, world No.8, dried up 3-0 (11-7,12-10,11-8). In the wake of his second tournament won on the circuit last month in Goa, after his title in Antalya in November. The fact remains that in five matches, Félix Lebrun has never won against the three Chinese.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t have imagined that we would be in the final,” breathes the third man, Simon Gauzy. “We came to look for something big but we didn’t really know what it was. Being in the final against China, we all dreamed of it.” Whatever the result on Sunday, these Worlds in Busan have already entered the history of the tricolor “ping”, the French table tennis players also returning with a medal, bronze, a first since 1991. Outclassed 3-0 by China on Friday, Jia Nan Yuan, Prithika Pavade and Charlotte Lutz did not have to play a match for the podium in South Korea, unlike the format of the 2024 Olympics.
2024-02-24 12:49:28
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