Singapore Smash 2024: Sharath Kamal loses to Felix Lebrun in quarterfinals

India’s Sharath Kamal’s dream run at the Singapore Smash table tennis tournament ended with a 1-4 (9-11, 2-11, 7-11, 11-9, 8-11) loss to World No. 6 Felix Lebrun in the men’s singles quarterfinals on Friday.

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Outplayed and down by three games, 41-year-old Sharath, a qualifier and ranked 88th in the world, pulled off his A game in the fourth. This phase was the Sharath one witnessed in the whole tournament. 

Using his powerful forehand top spin and backhand drive from the back of the table, the 10-time Indian National champion dismantled the 17-year-old French prodigy. However, in the fourth game, Felix raced to a 10-6 lead and finished the match in 31 minutes. 

Sharath had earlier defeated World No. 22 Omar Assar of Egypt, World No. 13 Darko Jorgic of Slovenia and World No. 51 Nicolas Burgos of Chile in the first three rounds of the main draw.

This has been the best WTT tournament for Sharath in recent times. He is expected to enter the top 40 in the world rankings and he will be India No. 1 next week. In the run-up to the Paris Olympics, Sharath couldn’t have asked for more.