Alexis Lebrun crushed Möregårdh in the semifinal on the way to the European Championship gold recently in Linz, Austria.
At home in Montpellier, it looked like it would be a repeat of the favorite in a new meeting between them. Lebrun played out the entire register in front of an equally amazed and delighted audience. The Frenchman whipped in ball after ball, went up to 8–0 and seemed unstoppable.
Then it was the Olympic silver medalist's turn. It was a display of table tennis in absolute world class, but now the Swede won the duels and suddenly the set was completely even – 9–9. Whereupon Lebrun took the set with 11–9.
Took the second set
Möregårdh responded by convincingly taking the second set with the same score. But that was the end of the fun. A few edge balls were on Lebrun's side when he took command (11–3) and went into the fourth set leading 2–1.
Lebrun didn't let go of the grip, made 11–3 and arranged a Saturday match against his brother Felix.
Anton Källberg's adventure in Montpellier is also over. The Swede had four match balls against the Japanese Tomokazu Harimoto in the quarterfinals, but the world number eight came back and won with 3–2 in sets.
The Swedish Olympic silver medalist in the team event failed to withstand Tomokazu Harimoto. Källberg lost with 2–3 in sets, 9–11, 11–9, 2–11, 11–4, 12–14.
Lost four match balls
It looked for a while like Harimoto would win clearly. The Japanese took the third set with a whole 11–2 for a 2–1 lead in sets, but Källberg responded in the fourth by winning with clear 11–4.
In the decisive fifth set, Harimoto took a grip directly and took four straight points, but Källberg responded with five straight won points. Källberg then went up to a lead with 10–6 and four match balls, but the Japanese saved all of them to finally win the match via 14–12 in the deciding set.
The winner of the tournament takes home 300,000 kronor in prize money.
