The public at the Sud Arena in Montpellier is only a short match away from seeing the long-awaited duel between the two Lebrun brothers. The younger of the two Félixes did his part of the job by reaching the quarter-finals this Thursday evening thanks to a victory over the Chinese Xiang Peng in four sets (11-3, 12-10, 5-11, 11-7) .
A match not at all won in advance despite Peng’s guest status. “Féfé” also lost during their last confrontation in China three weeks ago. But in the Montpellier fervor, the French ping prodigy imposed his pace from the start to win the first round in five minutes flat. Solid in all areas of the game, and incisive in heated moments, the 7th in the world had no doubts despite the loss of the third set.
“I lost against him in China but in France I had to go for victory,” he explained at the end of this meeting which was easily completed in the fourth round. The ball is now in his big brother’s court. All that remains is a success for Alexis Lebrun this Friday against Olympic vice-champion Truls Moregard to see a 100% Lebrun shock on Saturday in the quarter-finals. To the delight of an entire city.
