“We are very different, that’s what makes us strong in doubles.”

The Paris Paralympic Games will take place from August 28 to September 9. Among the 18 table tennis players selected for the French team, two are licensed at TT Joué: Clément Berthier and Esteban Herrault. Friends and accomplices, they form a formidable doubles but can also envisage a medal in singles. We met them on their return from the Slovenia and Montenegro opens on May 14, 2024 in the Jean Bigot room in Joué-lès-Tours.

Clément Berthier is the quiet force. Esteban Herrault is the last one. These two Jocondon table tennis players have known each other for 10 years and have formed a real bond. Which proves their strength when they play doubles. They are world number 2 in doubles and won the European champion title last September.

Esteban Herrault says: “Clément is rather stoic and doesn’t express too much emotion. Whereas for me during the doubles I need to shout. I’m always making jokes. We’re quite complementary”.

Complementaries and friends in life. Which allows their duo to last: “This complicity allows us to accept each other’s faults a little more, to forgive each other more easily and to move forward together.” laughs Clément Berthier.

For their coach at TT Joué, Claude Bard, the difference in temperament between the two table tennis players is the cornerstone of the success of the doubles. “Clément is more composed, he thinks more calmly. Esteban is enthusiastic and very positive. Which means that their doubles pair can be formidable. There is one that can calm while the other can inflame. They are two opposite characters that complement each other perfectly. ”

At 30, Esteban Herrault will participate in the Paralympic Games for the first time. “I’ve been playing table tennis for over ten years. It’s a teenage and young adult’s dream to participate in the Paris Games. Two years ago, we didn’t imagine that I could qualify for my first Paralympic Games,” confides the Jocondien licensed to TT Joué. His technical advantage is his setback. World number 8, he is on the verge of the Top 4.

“I practiced a little more. It was a little more rigorous in terms of planning with my whole team behind me. There is Claude the coach, the physical trainer, the mental trainer. There is a whole team that has been around me for three years to help me perform as well as possible.”

Esteban has been in charge of safety and security at Portes de Versailles under a high-level sports contract for a year. He has suffered from spastic quadriplegia since birth. “I have tendons and muscles that are shorter in all four of my limbs at different degrees of disability.”

If the disability does not particularly disrupt his daily life, to play table tennis, he has a suitable racket. “I have a special coating on my racket with little pimples that allows me to slow down the balls, counter my opponents’ balls and save time in my replacement.”

For Clément Berthier, 24, a student at Polytech in Tours, the Paris Games mark his second Olympic adventure, after Tokyo where he won bronze in 2020.It was during Covid, so there were no spectators. There will be quite a few spectators there, especially since we will be at home. There may be more pressure in Paris but I’m handling it quite well, so I’m looking forward to it.”

HAS On his return from the Slovenian Open at the beginning of May, the TT Joué licensee would enter the Top 2, which would allow him direct access to the top seeds at the Paris games. His strength: his forehand.

“I try to take my forehand as much as possible because I manage to hit it hard enough and often when it’s on the table we win the point. My opponents know this so they try to block me on my backhand… “

A left leg amputee, he wears a carbon blade like the athletes. “That does not seem like that but the movement is very important to be well placed in relation to the ball. This prosthesis helps me move better compared to my city prosthesis.”

In Tokyo, the French Paralympic table tennis team won 9 medals. Claude Bard, trainer at TT Joué is counting on his two foals to shine in Paris.

“Starting as seeded, we necessarily envisage the podium and we necessarily envisage winning”, assures the coach who has been on the French Paralympic team for 5 years. “Clément can even consider winning the singles, which he perhaps did not envisage at the start but given what he showed this weekend at the Sovenian Open, it is possible. For Esteban, it will be more complicated but you always have to dream. He dreamed of participating in the Paris Games, he succeeded. We are not going to stop at one qualification. We have a performing doubles who can go on the podium, same thing in singles. So we shouldn’t stop there. And then Paris is magical, achieving successful performances in France is magical.”

In June and July, Esteban Herrault and Clément Berthier will enter an intense phase of preparation for the games. Internships with the French team, mental and physical preparation… the two table tennis players will enter a bubble dedicated to the Games.

Para table tennis was already on the program for the first Paralympic Games in Rome in 1960, where only wheelchair table tennis players were then allowed to participate. Its Olympic equivalent only entered the Olympic Games in 1988. Today, it is the third Paralympic discipline in terms of the number of athletes entered.

The para table tennis events will take place from August 29 to September 7, 2024 at the Arena Paris Sud.