Newly crowned men's European table tennis champion Félix Lebrun was on Monday preparing to test his skills against the world's best players in his hometown at the WTT Champions Montpellier.
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During the 32-man event which starts on 26 October, he could face top 10 players such as Sora Matsushima and Tomokazu Harimoto from Japan, Lin Jun-yu from Taipei or world number one Wang Chuqin from China.
They were absent from the European championships in Slovenia where Lebrun underlined his status as the world's second best player to claim his first continental title on Sunday.
He beat Sweden's Anton Kallberg 7-11, 11-9, 13-11, 8-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-1 to succeed his brother Alexis who won the men's singles championships in Linz in 2024.
"Becoming European champion is a huge achievement," said Félix. "It’s a dream for a table tennis player. It’s a historic competition."
Félix's triumph came two days after he and Alexis teamed up at the Stozice Sports Hall in Ljubljana to beat Kallberg and his fellow Swede Kristian Karlsson to retain their men's doubles title.
Rise up world rankings
Félix Lebrun rose to world number two in August after winning the most prestigious singles competition of his career at the Europe Smash Sweden.
In Slovenia, the 20-year-old started his surge to glory with 4-0 sweeps in the opening two rounds over Poland's Maciej Kubik and Ivor Ban from Croatia.
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On 16 October in the last 16, Elias Ranefur from Sweden offered stiffer resistance before going down 4-2.
There was a 4-0 romp past the German Patrick Franziska in the last eight to set up a semi-final clash with fellow Frenchman Leo de Nodrest who came through the qualifying rounds.
The world number 67 led two sets to one before Lebrun recovered to claim a 4-2 victory and a place in the final where he again came from behind to beat Kallberg.
'It was a difficult match'
"It was a difficult match," said Lebrun of his 40-minute battle with Kallberg.
"I felt that I had been slightly on top for most of the match and at a certain point, I stopped thinking tactically. I told myself that I should go for every point and give everything I had without thinking about it.
"Even I didn’t expect to play the final set at that level. So I’m absolutely delighted."
With their singles and doubles titles at successive European championships, the Lebrun brothers have stitched themselves into French table tennis legend 50 years after Jacques Secrétin became the first Frenchman to win the European singles crown.
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As well as becoming the third and fourth Frenchman to brandish the European singles title, they are the third French pair to win the doubles event since the inception of the championships in 1958.
Only the German duo of Timo Boll and Christian Suss have won more doubles titles. They lifted four on the trot between 2007 and 2010.
"We would never take winning a European championships for granted," said Alexis Lebrun.
"It’s an extraordinary competition featuring all the best players in Europe. To have fought our way through and won it is simply extraordinary."