Alexis and Félix Lebrun, entered on Wednesday for the WTT Finals in Fukuoka (November 20-24) in Japan, will seek to end a year at best “beyond expectations” for the two brothers of the French ping.
Thanks to their ranking at the beginning of November – they were 14th and 4th on Monday – both will be entered in singles and doubles (with the other French pair formed by Florian Bourrassaud and Esteban Dorr) for the event equivalent to the Tennis Masters, which brings together the 16 best players in the world.
Alexis Lebrun will be opposed in the first round to the Chinese Lin Shidong, world No.2, recent winner of the WTT Champions in Frankfurt but also, among others, of the Grand Smash in Beijing this season. Félix Lebrun will challenge the German Benedikt Duda (18th), who overthrew him in the quarter-finals of the European Championships in Linz in October.
Certainly, two Chinese big names will be missing, the double Olympic champion (in singles and teams) Fan Zhendong, and Ma Long, 36 years old, six-time gold medalist (including in 2024 by teams), but it remains to be seen which forces both will still be able to throw into the battle.
“We are reaching the end of the line, we tried to do as best we could”in Frankfurt two weeks ago, explains Nathanaël Molin, coach of Alexis and Félix Lebrun, eliminated in the first round and in the quarter-final in Germany.
French table tennis player Félix Lebrun in the quarter-final of the WTT Champions against his elder Alexis on October 26, 2024 in Montpellier / Sylvain THOMAS / AFP/Archives
And if the Finals represent “a very good competition (…) we couldn’t prepare for it with the crazy sequence”he continues.
“The calendar does not revolve around the Olympic Games in a year like that, so behind the Games we have almost the most important competitions”explains the coach, for whom the subject is not “the number of competitions but rather how they are structured”.
“We have to deal with it. There is little consistency in the schedule so we put up with it, but not bad in the end”.
– “Completely crazy” –
The year was indeed rich, beyond the Paris Games and the bronze medals gleaned by Félix Lebrun in singles and by the French team (Simon Gauzy, Félix and Alexis Lebrun).
What’s next? two European champion titles — in singles for Alexis Lebrun and in doubles — before the 18-year-old’s victory at the end of October at the WTT Champions in Montpellier, where they also play as a club.
“It’s beyond our expectations”says Nathanaël Molin, “it is more than exceptional for us, the French ping, even the ping as a whole. It’s completely crazy what we’ve been through.”adds the native of Dijon, who also mentions the money collected at the World Team Championships in Busan at the start of the year.
French table tennis player Alexis Lebrun against his elder Félix in the quarter-final of the WTT Champions on October 26, 2024 in Montpellier / Sylvain THOMAS / AFP/Archives
Fukuoka will then give way to rest, before “refocus on training and more calm over a fortnight in December and probably in January”concludes the 38-year-old coach.
If 2025 will not be an Olympic year, it will be marked by the Individual World Championships in Doha in May, where the Lebrun Brothers will have to perform well if they wish to establish themselves in the long term at the table of the Chinese giants, masters of discipline.
