by Ian Marshall, Editor
In the title deciding contest, Thibault Poret gave his team the ideal start by beating Denis Izumdrunov (11-9, 9-11, 13-11, 11-6), before in the crucial second match of the engagement, by the very narrowest of margins Félix Lebrun accounted for Vladislav Makarov (12-10, 6-11, 13-11, 4-11, 12-10).
The French pair in the ascendancy, they duly overcame Vladislav Makarov and Sergey Ryzhov to secure the doubles and overall victory (11-7, 5-11, 16-14, 11-7).
A most impressive performance from the French duo; earlier in the day it had been very much the same. At the quarter-final stage a 3-1 had been the margin of victory against Germany’s Mike Hollo and Felix Kohler, before a 3-0 semi-final win was recorded in opposition to Poland’s Mateusz Zalewski and Milosz Redzimski.
“Our objective arriving here was to reach the semi-final. In the groups, we didn’t play very well. In the quarter-final, we had a very hard match against Germany. After that victory, we felt very good. Before the final, we were a little under pressure but we knew that we had chances, we recently played against the same team in Hungary and we lost very tight match 3-2; every match was tight in this final. After we led 2-0, we knew that it was important to keep them under pressure with the doubles. It’s our first victory in a team event, so we are happy with this result.” Félix Lebrun
Delight for the players, the reaction from Jérôme Bahuaud, the coach, was equally one of joy.
“We didn’t really expect to arrive in final but we were quite confident. The match against Germany was difficult but the boys played at a very good level. We had lost several times against Russia, they have strong players and they have a very good mental approach but tonight we fought and won.” Jérôme Bahuaud
In the opposite half of the draw, a direct entry to the semi-finals, the Russian trio had recorded a 3-2 win against Romania’s Darius Movileanu and Andrei Tomica to reserve their place in the final.
Proceedings conclude on Sunday 14th April when the individual titles in the cadet age group events will be decided.
