A month after winning the Table Tennis World Cup, Hugo Calderano repeated a feat when he reached the final of the World Championship, the most prestigious tournament of the sport, just behind the Olympic Games.
But in the most important game of his career, the Brazilian lost to Wang Chuqin for 4 games to 1, in a match where the world’s current number 2 showed the strength of a “bite” China for the Cup defeat, when the Brazilian then defeated Wang Chuqin himself and ranking leader Lin Shidong.
Calderano had already made history at the Olympics, when the first non -Asian or non -European to reach the semifinals of the tournament – the medal has narrowly fled. In April, not only came to a final. He won the World Cup by enabling wins against those who held the first positions of the world ranking. The achievement opened a crisis in Chinese table tennis and raised doubts if the defeats were something punctual or not.
Now, when I arrived at the runner-up at the World Cup, it is known that it was not just a deviation. Calderano placed the southern hemisphere on the world table tennis map, because he was the first Latin American to enter the top 10 of the ranking, where he remains without interruption for seven years. He also won Cups at WTT events and helped Liebherr Ochsenhausen, the team they defend in Germany, win championships and reach this year’s Bundesliga end. But this is different from winning the World Cup and threatening Chinese dominion in the World Cup.
The World Cup is annual, and the World Cup, held since 1926, has been taking place every two years, in a system with only knockout matches, while the World Cup has a curious group stage, where it is often to see the classified players are defined by won games. The World Cup also brings together more participants.
In common, both tournaments can be considered even more difficult than the Olympic Games, as there is no limit of athletes per country. Thus, in individual disputes, instead of only two China Tennis Tables, still the greatest power in this sport, there is five, as happened in this edition in Doha. Both the World Cup and the World Cup, however, do not have the spotlight or the audience that the games attract.
A quick spin through Chinese social networks like Bilibili and Douyin shows that even the netizens, as the country’s netizens are called, are impressed with the Brazilian Table Table, which goes beyond surprise with the results. There are messages of respect for Calderano techniques, and the match against Liang Jingkun has been defined as “example of what actually attracts public attention and raises the sport.” “Even the transmission commentators were silent. This was not just luck, it was pure skill.”
In the semifinal, Calderano showed the usual force in the first two sets and won with some tranquility. The reaction came, and he had cold blood to stay in the game and make ten consecutive points after the decisive game starts with three points of the Chinese. At the most beautiful moment, he paraded: he defended attacking, broke the pace, used the backhand with both hands at the bottom of the court and ended with a cone.
Other Netizens began to pay attention to Calderano’s personal life and intelligence, highlighting the fact that he speaks seven languages - with Mandarin – resolving a magic cube in seconds and playing other sports well. They also expressed surprise that he began to practice table tennis at age 13, while in China it is common to see five -year -olds already training for real, something very cultural.
All of these predicates outside the table are well known in Brazil, but Calderano’s private life is increasingly drawing attention in the country, perhaps due to the entrance of Cazé TV in broadcasts. Right in the channel style, which shows athletes in more relaxed posts, outside the traditional media model, the relationship with the Table Takahashi table, once very discreet, became a recurring theme, as well as the relationship with parents, great career incentivators of the current number three of the ranking.
The fact is that nothing has taken the focus of Calderano out of table tennis, and he shows that he can reach Los Angeles-2028 as one of the favorites. Because it zebra he definitely ceased to be. Even the Chinese agree.
