SINGAPORE – He is not old enough to legally sip wine, but Felix Lebrun has been savouring some champagne table tennis en route to becoming the top-ranked non-Chinese men’s singles player at just 17.
On a day when Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha retained their Singapore Smash mixed doubles crown and extended China’s perfect record to 11 titles since the US$1.5 million (S$2 million) event began in 2022, the French wunderkind signalled his intent to break the Chinese stranglehold.
On March 15, he continued his march to greatness as he beat India’s Sharath Kamal 4-1 (11-9, 11-2, 11-7, 9-11, 11-8) at the OCBC Arena to progress to the last four, where he will meet China’s world No. 2 Wang Chuqin on March 16.
The other semi-final will be contested between China’s fifth-ranked Liang Jingkun and Chinese Taipei’s world No. 8 Lin Yun-ju.
Lebrun said: “I lost twice to Wang Chuqin this year, but my team and I will analyse his game and we will try to find solutions.
“I like to enter a match with an idea of how I will play, so I will be ready to try to beat him this time.”
Regardless of the result, the teenager is set to move up one spot to a career-high fifth in next week’s world rankings – a remarkable rise from 1,132nd just 29 months ago.
Table tennis runs in the Lebrun family.
His brother Alexis, 20, is ranked 20th and has beaten world champion Fan Zhendong of China.
Their father Stephane is a former national men’s doubles champion, while their uncle Christophe Legout represented France at three Olympics and was once world No. 15.
Felix told The Straits Times: “It’s good to have family support. Alexis gives me advice and we try to beat each other for bragging rights and this makes us improve.
“It has been a good year for us. Our men’s team reached the World Team Table Tennis Championships final, I’m in my first Singapore Smash semi-final and the goal is to improve.
“I’m very far from being world No. 1, but I hope I can do that one time in my career.
“And of course, the Olympics will be in Paris this year, and if I can play my best, I will be very happy.”
The bespectacled Felix looks more like a geeky gamer than a world-class athlete. He does prefer video games to pursuing his French Baccalaureate online, but give him a bat and he turns into a right-handed penhold machine.
Inspired by Chinese journeyman Chen Jian, whom he saw playing in the French league, he adopted the seemingly outdated grip as it allows him to impart more spin on the ball, even if this is at the expense of power.
His technique earned praise from rival Kamal: “He has that ability to change the game, especially in serving and receiving. This is what makes him a great player for his age.”
Standing in the way of Felix is Wang, who is China’s highest-ranked men’s player left, following the elimination of Fan, world No. 3 Ma Long and fourth-ranked Lin Gaoyuan.
Buoyed by his ascent as the new world No. 1 next week, the 23-year-old teamed up with women’s world No. 1 Sun to lift a third straight mixed doubles crown and US$8,500 winners’ cheque with a 3-1 (11-7, 11-8, 9-11, 11-7) win over South Korea’s third-ranked Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin.
He then returned to beat German world No. 10 Qiu Dang 4-1 (8-11, 11-1, 13-11, 11-7, 13-11) in their men’s singles quarter-final.
Earlier, Wang partnered Fan to beat Swedes Mattias Falck and Anton Kallberg 3-1 (11-2, 11-3, 10-12, 11-8) to book a March 16 men’s doubles final against compatriots Ma and Lin Gaoyuan.
The mixed doubles victory provided some consolation for Sun, whose women’s singles title defence was ended by compatriot and world No. 6 Chen Xingtong.
Chen won 4-2 (12-10, 11-9, 6-11, 13-11, 9-11, 11-8) to set up a semi-final against fourth-ranked compatriot Wang Yidi.
World No. 2 Chen Meng will take on third-ranked Wang Manyu in the other all-China semi-final.
The women’s doubles final will see Chen Meng and Wang Manyu play Chinese Taipei’s Li Yu-jhun and Cheng I-ching.
