How Félix Lebrun's Unique Penhold Grip is Rewriting Table Tennis Mechanics

For decades, the highest echelons of international table tennis have been governed by a strict orthodoxy: the shakehand grip, wielded with devastating efficiency by the Chinese national team.[1][3]

But a quiet revolution born in a basement in Montpellier, France, has violently disrupted that status quo.[1]

Enter Félix Lebrun, a French teenager who has rocketed into the top five of the world rankings, becoming the highest-ranked non-Chinese player on the globe.[1][2]

What makes Félix’s ascent so extraordinary is not just his youth or his nationality, but his weapon of choice: the penhold grip.

To understand the anomaly, one must understand the mechanics of the sport. The vast majority of European players use the shakehand grip, holding the paddle exactly as the name implies, which provides balanced power on both sides of the body.

The penhold grip, traditionally favored in Asia, pinches the handle between the thumb and index finger, leaving the racket head pointing downwards like a writing instrument.

Historically, penhold offered devastating forehand power and highly deceptive serves, but it suffered from a glaring structural weakness: a cramped, awkward backhand block that required contorting the arm and pushing the ball rather than spinning it.

To survive the modern era of hyper-aggressive topspin, penhold players adopted the Reverse Penhold Backhand (RPB), a technique pioneered by Chinese legends that uses the back side of the blade to attack.

Félix Lebrun has taken the RPB and mutated it into something entirely his own, optimizing it for a blistering European style of play.

While traditional penholders extend two or three fingers across the back of the blade for stability, Félix curls his fingers tightly against the handle, almost hiding them from view.

This extreme "curled finger" grip removes the fingers from the hitting surface entirely, creating a massive, unobstructed sweet spot on the backhand side of the racket.[3]

More importantly, relaxing the fingers in this curled position disengages the forearm flexors, granting Félix an almost supernatural degree of wrist flexibility.

This biomechanical quirk allows him to execute lightning-fast backhand swings right off the bounce, playing at a relentless, suffocating tempo that robs opponents of crucial reaction time.

There is a calculated trade-off to this innovation: the lack of finger support on the back of the blade sacrifices raw forehand power when pushed far away from the table.

Yet, Félix mitigates this vulnerability by refusing to step back, hugging the table and turning matches into rapid-fire, close-quarters combat where his reflexes reign supreme.[3]

He is not alone in this crusade; his older brother Alexis, who plays with a traditional shakehand grip, has matched his meteoric rise, creating a formidable sibling dynasty that pushes both to new heights.[1][2]

Together, the Lebrun brothers have reinvigorated French table tennis, transforming the sport from a niche pursuit into a national obsession that packed arenas with flag-waving fans during the Paris Olympics.[2]

As they continue to refine their contrasting styles and climb the rankings, the brothers represent the most credible European threat to Chinese table tennis hegemony in a generation, proving that innovation can still rewrite the rules of the game.[1][2]