By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday October 3, 2024
Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner’s otherworldly tennis rivalry has been likened to ‘ping pong’ by many a pundit.
This week on the China Open, Olympic males’s singles silver medalist Alcaraz, who claimed the singles title in Beijing, obtained to fulfill the actual desk tennis execs.
Paris Olympics medalists gathered on the China Open as Alcaraz mingled with desk tennis gold, silver and bronze medalists from China, Sweden and France, respectively.
Alcaraz, who defeated Sinner in an exhilarating three-set ultimate on Wednesday night, met with Olympic gold medalist Fan Zhengdong, who additionally was available Alcaraz’s spherical of 16 match, participating in a ceremonial coin toss.
“Clearly a particular visitor in China, getting the gold medalist, nice having him right here. I hope he loved my match,” stated Alcaraz, who earned his two hundredth profession tour-level win on Sunday. “Yeah, it was an important day for me.”
After his first-round win over Frenchman Giovanni Mpetshi Perricard on Friday, Alcaraz met desk tennis singles and group silver medalist Truls Moregardh of Sweden together with the French group bronze medalists, brothers Alexis and Felix Lebrun and Simon Gauzy. The 18-year-old Felix Lebrun, who is without doubt one of the sport’s younger stars, additionally was a singles bronze medalist in Paris.
The desk tennis stars watched Alcaraz’s match and are large followers of the game. They took day out of the schedule in Beijing in preparation for the WTT China SMASH occasion, which started on Saturday and runs by means of October 6.
“I’ve all the time loved watching tennis and my brother (Alexis) and I attempt to play tennis after we are again dwelling in Montpellier,”stated Felix, who’s No. 5 within the World Desk Tennis rankings. “It was nice to go to the China Open and see the perfect tennis gamers and in addition meet the completely different gamers like (Carlos) Alcaraz and (Daniil) Medvedev.”
Not surprisingly, Lebrun is impressed with Alcaraz’s dynamic courtroom protection.
“Carlos is so quick and really dynamic on the courtroom,” he stated. “He’s excellent to look at and he’s a pleasant man as nicely. Once we met him we talked just a little bit in regards to the Olympics and just a little bit about his match, but it surely was a pleasure to fulfill him and it was nice to look at him play.”
The French group are additionally buddies of countryman Eduoard Roger-Vasselin, who after his first spherical doubles win, met with the bronze medalists of their seats on Lotus Court docket to look at the conclusion of the Alcaraz-Mpetshi Perricard match.
The 22-year-old Moregardh, who was a two-time silver medalist in Paris, additionally loved his day on the China Open. “My expertise on the China Open was incredible, nice gamers, nice individuals, nice enviornment, incredible tennis matches, tremendous top quality and activites for the followers to return and watch,” stated the Swede.
Co-tournament director Lars Graff, who hails from Sweden, added: “It was nice to have the silver medalist from Sweden within the Paris Olympic Video games come right here. I used to be extraordinarily proud to have him right here and in addition the French gamers, the way forward for desk tennis, two younger brothers, one was a semifinalist and gained the bronze medal they usually gained the group bronze medal as nicely. It’s China, Sweden and France dominating now in desk tennis.
“They actually loved coming to the China Open and I loved going to WTT to see how they conduct a world class desk tennis match.”
