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 down the road to Los Angeles.
The greatest Brazilian athlete in the history of sport, Calderano won the World Cup, one of the most traditional tournaments in sport, and reached the World Cup final, with performances that consolidated him as a very high level player, an opinion corroborated by the public and also by powerful opponents.
In addition to his performances in extremely prestigious competitions, this year he won the German Cup and the Bundesliga, triumphs which marked his farewell to Liebherr Ochsenhausen, the club he defended for nine seasons. In the final of the German championship, he took the opportunity again to spoil the party of Timo Boll, former world number 1 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 has experienced ups and downs. The year began with back-to-back defeats against Asian players, failing to advance beyond the quarter-finals in four competitions. Calderano himself says the bad phase is the result of the moment of transition after the disappointment of leaving the 2024 Paris Olympics without a medal, when he reached the semi-finals, a historic milestone in itself – he became the first athlete from outside Asia and Europe to reach this stage.
The shock of such frustration pushed the table tennis player to make major changes in his preparation. He changed the entire technical team, breaking his 15-year partnership with the Frenchman Jean-René Mounie, and decided to leave Ochsenhausen to concentrate solely on the world circuit, which, with fewer matches, should avoid his physical exhaustion.
The turning point began in April, with gold at the World Cup, the biggest achievement of his career so far. In Macau, in front of Chinese fans, he beat the athletes who then occupied the top of the world rankings: the Japanese Tomokazu Harimoto, then number 3, in the quarter-finals, the Chinese Wang Chuqin, number 2, in the semi-final, and the also Chinese Lin Shidong, number 1, in the final, which he won with authority.
The unprecedented nature of the triumph, since the Brazilian was the first non-Asian and non-European to win the championship, gave momentum to his season, and he then 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. The simple fact that he made it past the elite bubble and reached the final, with memorable matches, like the semi-finals 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, Frenchman Félix Lebrun, and achieved the expected scenario by winning smaller WTT championships, in Foz do Iguaçu and Buenos Aires, where he was by far the best. It is in fact in Argentina 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-Americans, they won gold, in a context where the general level of the participants is lower than that of the circuit. The overall performance was positive, with an encouraging triumph against world number 5 duo Wong Chun Ting and Doo Hoi Kem, and defeats against established couples, which is expected for a partnership formed so recently. The couple already occupy sixth place in the world rankings, which suggests an opportunity in Los Angeles.
The Olympics, of course, are the Brazilian’s biggest goal, and to have a more viable path to the semi-finals, he must remain in the top four in the rankings until mid-2028 – today he is third. Therefore, the performance after August, when he was outplayed in all six WTT tournaments he participated in, raised alarm bells.
Besides the WTT Champions in Macau, in which he ruled against Wang Chuqin, the current world number 1, Calderano lost in other competitions to athletes he usually beats and, even worse, without going beyond the quarterfinals.
It is also worth noting that other rivals of a similar level, such as Harimoto, Lebrun and the Swede 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 this year in Sweden the first non-Chinese player to win a WTT Smash, considered the Grand Slam 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 timidly, in several videos and games on Cazé TV, which broadcast the main competitions. The channel’s relaxed, conceited vibe actually helped make Calderano something of a sports celebrity.
On the calendar until 2028, the first year of the current Olympic cycle is over, and it has been excellent. But its end encourages us to ensure that the Brazilian does not leave the level he himself reached in two decades.
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