Less than a year after reaching the best result of Brazilian table tennis at Olympics, Hugo Calderano achieved another historic feature in his career on Friday (18).
The 28 -year -old carioca surpassed the Japanese Tomokazu Harimoto from a turn and advanced to the semifinals of the modality World Cup, played in Macao.
This is the first time that a representative of Brazil has arrived at this stage of the competition, disputed since 1980, which guarantees him at least one bronze medal. Until then, the best result of Calderano had been in 2019, when it reached the quarterfinals.
Current 5 of the ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation) ranking, the carioca dispatched the Japanese Harimoto, which is the 3rd, in five sets (8/11, 11/8, 11/8, 11/8 and 12/10),
In the next phase, Calderano will catch the Chinese Wang Chuqin (2nd) at dawn on Saturday (19), at 3:45 am, at Brasilia. The match is broadcast on Youtube on Cazétv and ITTF World channels.
The dispute in the other semifinal will be among the also Chinese Lin Shidong (leader of the ranking) and Liang Jingkun (4th).
In the female category, Paulista Bruna Takahashi (24th of the ranking) became the first Brazilian to advance to the quarterfinals of the World Cup.
In the round of 16, she defeated Romanian Bernadette Szocs (14th) by 4 sets at 0 (11/8, 11/7, 11/7 and 11/5). Following, he stopped in front of the favorite Chinese Chen Xingtong (4th), who won the duel 4-1 (11/8, 6/11, 11/11, 11/7 and 11/7).
This year’s edition marks the sixth participation of Calderano in World Cups and Bruna’s second.
