The first title has been claimed in Tunisia. Although favored to win, it was not easy for the mixed doubles champions at the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender Tunis. Bearing the pressure of the #1 seeding were the French duo of Emmanuel Lebesson (pictured, left) and Jia Nan Yuan (right). They cruised to the semifinals, dropping only one game along the way. Then, things got interesting. Facing India's tandem of Manika Batra and Sathiyan Gnanasekaran in the penultimate round, Yuan and Lebesson quickly found themselves trailing 0-2 in the best-of-five match. After restoring hope with a third game win, they soon faced a daunting deficit at 4-7 in the must-win fourth. Digging deep, they rallied to close the game on a 7-2 run. The would win the deciding game by the identical 11-9 score. In the finals, Yuan and Lebesson encountered Daria Trigolos and Aleksandr Khanin, the the dangerous Belarusian duo who had swept second-seeded Nina Mittelham and Dang Qiu of Germany in the semis. Like déjà vu all over again, the favored French force fell flat on their faces. Down 0-2, there was little margin for error. Sticking to the script from the semis, they rallied in the third before falling behind in the fourth. This time, however, they faced an even bigger deficit at 3-7 in the do-or-die tilt. Once again, they chose the former, closing the key game on a stunning 8-1 run. Momentum in hand, they sealed the deal with a clutch 11-9 win in the fifth. "It was like that for us in the semifinal when [we] went 2-0 down and then bounced back to win the encounter," described Lebesson. "But we knew that it would be tougher in the final against Khanin and Trigolos." Scarcely believing how close they came to elimination, Lebesson described the seemingly insurmountable advantaged enjoyed by their opponents. "It was 2-1, 7-4 in the semifinal and 2-1, 7-3 in the final," he recounted, scarcely believing it himself. With the victory came no small measure of redemption for Yuan and Lebesson. Earlier this year at the WTT Contender Doha, the French duo narrowly missed out on the chance to claim the first ever mixed doubles title on the WTT tour. In the March 6 final, they were edged, 3-2, by Cheng I-Ching and Lin Yun-Ju. "We are so happy to win our first WTT Mixed Doubles title because, in Qatar, we lost in the final," reflected Lebesson. "Here we started as top seeds and won. It will be good for our ranking." In addition to the world ranking points and prize money, Jia Nan Yuan and Emmanuel Lebesson have also gained a hard-won confidence in themselves. After all, as today's results clearly demonstrate, however down they may be, they are never out of it.

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