In the year he celebrated 20 years since he started playing table tennis, Hugo Calderano had the best season of his career, although the end of 2025 sent a warning on the way to Los Angeles.
The greatest Brazilian athlete in the history of the sport, Calderano won the World Cup, one of the most traditional tournaments in the sport, and reached the final of the World Cup, in performances that consolidated him as a player of a very high standard, a view corroborated by the public and also by important opponents.
In addition to his performance in extremely prestigious competitions, he won the German Cup and the Bundesliga this year, triumphs that marked his farewell to Liebherr Ochsenhausen, the club he defended for nine seasons. In the final of the German league, he still took the chance to spoil the party of Timo Boll, former number 1 in the world rankings and considered a table tennis legend, who was ending his career after 30 years.
Already in WTT (World Table Tennis) tournaments, the world circuit, Calderano experienced ups and downs. The year began with consecutive defeats to Asian players, failing to advance beyond the quarterfinals in four competitions. Calderano himself says that the bad phase was the result of the moment of transition after the disappointment of leaving the Paris Olympics in 2024 without a medal, when he reached the semifinals, a historic milestone in itself — he became the first athlete from outside Asia and Europe to reach this stage.
The shock of such frustration made the table tennis player make major changes in his preparation. He changed the entire technical team, breaking his 15-year partnership with Frenchman Jean-René Mounie, and decided to leave Ochsenhausen to focus solely on the world circuit, which, with fewer games, should save his physical exhaustion.
The turning point began in April, with gold in the World Cup, the biggest achievement of his career so far. In Macau, in front of Chinese fans, he defeated the athletes who at that time occupied the top of the world rankings: the Japanese Tomokazu Harimoto, then number 3, in the quarterfinals, the Chinese Wang Chuqin, number 2, in the semifinals, and the also Chinese Lin Shidong, number 1, in the final, which he won with authority.
The unprecedented nature of the triumph, as the Brazilian was the first non-Asian and non-European to win the championship, gave a boost to his season, and he subsequently reached the final of the World Cup, a competition with a lot of history and which, like the World Cup, is dominated by the Chinese. Just the fact that he broke through the elite bubble and reached the final, with memorable matches, like the semis against Liang Jingkun, is admirable.
He then won the WTT Star Contender in Ljubljana, Slovenia, beating his tormentor in the bronze medal match in Paris, the Frenchman Felix Lebrun, and fulfilled the expected script by winning smaller WTT championships, in Foz do Iguaçu and Buenos Aires, where he was by far the best. It was in Argentina, in fact, that he consolidated his partnership with Bruna Takahashi in mixed doubles, which began in October 2024.
In the Argentine capital, they won a tournament for the first time, after playing in a final in Slovenia. At the Pan-American, they took gold, with the context that the general level of the participants is lower than that of the circuit. The overall performance was positive, with an encouraging triumph against Wong Chun Ting and Doo Hoi Kem, pair number 5 in the world, and defeats against established pairs, which is expected for a partnership formed so recently. The couple already occupies sixth place in the world rankings, which points to an opportunity in Los Angeles.
The Olympics, of course, are the Brazilian’s biggest goal, and to have a more viable path through the Games to the semis, he needs to remain among the top four in the rankings until mid-2028 — today he is third. Therefore, the performance after August, when he was surpassed in the six WTT tournaments he played, raised an alarm.
Apart from the WTT Champions in Macau, in which he went to the decision against Wang Chuqin, current number 1 in the world, Calderano lost in other competitions to athletes he usually beats and, worse, without getting past the quarterfinals.
It is also notable that other rivals of a similar level, such as Harimoto, Lebrun and Swedish Truls Moregard, for example, are on the rise, with good results in major tournaments. Moregard, silver medalist in Paris after eliminating Calderano in the semi-final, became the first non-Chinese player this year in Sweden to win a WTT Smash, considered the Grand Slams of table tennis. Today he is fifth in the world.
Outside of tournaments, Calderano opened his first table tennis academy in Rio at the end of this year, helping to strengthen the practice in the country and his own name. More popular in the media in 2025, he participated, even shyly, in several videos and games on Cazé TV, which broadcast the main competitions. The channel’s relaxed and boastful vibe, in fact, helped make Calderano a kind of sports celebrity.
On the calendar until 2028, the first year of the current Olympic cycle is over, and it was excellent. But its ending inspires care so that the Brazilian does not leave the level he himself achieved in two decades.
