WTT Finals: French star Simon Gauzy trying to balance being ‘husband, dad and good player’
Paris Olympics bronze medallist Simon Gauzy faces Japanese nemesis Tomokazu Harimoto in the first round
Ahead of his first appearance at the WTT Finals on Thursday, Simon Gauzy said he had been drawing a lot of strength from his children.
A member of the French men’s table tennis team who won bronze at last year’s Olympic Games, Gauzy left his German club side TTF Liebherr Ochsenhausen after playing in the Bundesliga for 12 years to return home to play for GV Hennebont in the summer.
“My son and my daughter, they’re the [reasons] I’ve been playing great this year,” the father of two said. “It’s not easy to see them because I’ve been going further in tournaments and staying away longer.
“That’s the hard thing, but I’m just trying to find the right balance between being a husband, dad and a good table tennis player.”
Ranked No 17 in the world, the 31-year-old said he would end his career for the sake of his children, but his son, who is seven, had told him to carry on.
“He is starting to understand that I’m doing something a bit special, that I’m not bad at my sport. And he’s proud of me, of what I do,” Gauzy, who also has a two-year-old daughter, said.