Table tennis: Simon Gozi overtakes Alexis Lebrun in world rankings and in the race for the Games

The eldest of the Lebrun brothers is no longer the Frenchman’s number two. This Tuesday, Simon Gozi became the 23rd player in the world, ahead of Alexis Lebrun, who dropped to 33rd place. A decline that can be explained not only by disappointing recent results, but also by the loss of points in the rankings, which the eldest of the Lebrun brothers gained a year ago.

21st before this update of the world rankings, Alexis Lebrun dropped 12 positions this Tuesday, he failed to escape from his group at the World Championships in Macau, like Simon Ghazi. But the latter is in better shape than the 20-year-old table tennis player, who is going through a delicate period a year after his very good performances at the WTT Champions in Xinxiang and Macau.

For his part, 29-year-old Simon Gozi has moved up a small place and is now the second French player in the world rankings behind Felix Lebrun, sixth, who loses one place. An important change due to the Olympic Games. Indeed, only the top two French table tennis players in the ITTF rankings will qualify for the Olympic Games in singles on June 18th.

Simon Gozi and Alexis Lebrun have two deadlines left to find out which of them will accompany Felix Lebrun in the singles in Paris this summer. Big points will be up for grabs at the Grand Smash in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (May 1-11) and Champions in Chongqing, China from May 30 to June 3.

The men’s world rankings continue to be dominated by China’s Wang Chuqin, Fan Zhengdong and Ma Long, the recent Macau World Cup winner after beating Felix Lebrun in the round of 16.