Brazilian Hugo Calderano wins table tennis world cup
Brazilian table tennis player Hugo Calderano won the table tennis world cup in Macau, China, on Sunday (Apr. 20). He is the first non-Asian, non-European athlete to win the title.
“It’s an incredible feeling to win this title,” Calderano said in an interview with the International Table Tennis Federation after the match.
“I didn’t start off so comfortably. I lost the first set, but I managed to make some tactical adjustments, and I was also mentally ready when the chance came. I’m also proud to be able to represent Brazil so well and bring a title of this magnitude to our country,” he said.
In the final, Calderano beat China’s Lin Shidong, ranked number one in the world, four sets to one. On the way, he overcame the Chinese number one in the world, Wang Chuqin, and the Japanese number three, Tomokazu Harimoto.
Also post-match, Calderano recalled the tough period he went through after the Paris Olympics in 2024, when he reached the semi-finals and came close to a medal, but lost to Sweden’s Truls Möregårdh in the semi-finals and lost bronze to ’s Felix Lebrun. Even so, on that occasion, he achieved the best performance by an athlete from the Americas in the history of the sport at the competition.
The result lifts the Brazilian from fifth to fourth in the world rankings. He is a three-time Pan American Games singles champion and Olympic semi-finalist, and has won 25 titles on the international table tennis circuit.
Government sponsorship
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva paid tribute to the athlete, who has been ed by the federal government’s Bolsa Atleta program for almost 15 years.
“Incredible performance by the world’s top-five athlete,” the president wrote in a post on social media. “In a tournament with 48 of the best international competitors, the Brazilian led a player from the Americas to the decider and the title for the first time,” he stated.
Bolsa Atleta is an initiative linked to the Ministry of Sport, created in 2005, which sponsors individual high-performance athletes and parathletes in national and international competitions. It guarantees minimum conditions for them to dedicate themselves exclusively and peacefully to training and to local, South American, Pan American, world, Olympic, and Paralympic competitions.
