And finally, Félix Lebrun ended up reaching his limits this Saturday in the quarter-finals of the WTT Champions in Incheon, South Korea. Not his technical limits, but physical ones after a series of performances and trips which ended up exhausting the young 17-year-old table tennis player. From a final of a World Team Championship in Busan, South Korea to a semi-final of the Smash in Singapore, followed by another final, of the French Championships in Montpellier before, therefore, returning to Korea South, barely more than a month will have passed. And as talented as he is, Félix Lebrun remains no less human…
Thus, opposed to the formidable Brazilian Hugo Calderano (8th in the world), the French number 1 ended up cracking. Already a winner in the previous round of Alexis Lebrun, the big brother of Félix, the South American, who had lost his last confrontation against the player from Montpellier during the final of the WTT Star Contender in Goa in January, this time did not win him left no chance. If the first round turned out to be close (11-9 in favor of Calderano), the rest was less and less so (11-8 then 11-5 for Auriverde) and Félix Lebrun had to lose. Which will not prevent him from retaining his 5th place in the world, given that his closest pursuer, the Taiwanese Lin Yu-Ju, was also stopped in the quarter-finals by the Chinese table tennis legend Ma Long (3 sets to 1).
Another Frenchman, Simon Gauzy, came very close to a formidable feat against another Chinese, Liang Jingkun, currently 3rd in the world but former number one. Impressive throughout the match, the Frenchman, 30th in the world rankings, won the first two sets (16-14, 11-8) in magnificent fashion before seeing the next two escape him so narrowly, including three balls of match cruelly evaporated (11-13, 14-16).
In the fifth and final set, despite an exceptional stroke of genius on the backhand, Simon Gauzy no longer had the weapons to fight, he who had lived through the same schedule as Félix Lebrun and who, therefore, must have felt more or less the same wear and tear. physical. Liang Jingkun took the opportunity to win 11 points to 5 and reach the last four where his compatriot Ma Long awaits him. “I am very sad not to win with this level… I have three match points, which he plays very well. It’s one of the biggest matches of my life,” commented the Frenchman on his X account while he still remains in the fight with Alexis Lebrun to obtain second place for France in singles for the next Olympic Games of Paris 2024.
