ITTF Men's and Women's World Cup Macao 2025, 4/14-20

[Matt Hetherington]

Thrilled for Hugo, more than anything i’m happy to see a world cup title mean so much to an athlete. The Chinese players are great but they are expected to win, and when they do it’s usually a light smile on the podium and a selfie. Hugo’s post match interview was all feels, the man really felt what it meant to win the world cup and i’m so happy for him!

 

[NoSpin]

Can some1 explain how come CNT players have troubles with seamless balls and these are still used by organization run by chinese at the tournament held in China?

 

[Dr Evil]

Can some1 explain how come CNT players have troubles with seamless balls and these are still used by organization run by chinese at the tournament held in China?

I don't think the CNT played poorly. I think the main effect was that they had less of an advantage in serve/receive and the short game, so non-CNT (especially non-H3) played better.

 

[Federal_Agent]

Brazil is celebrating Hugo's historic victory, with a lot of coverage in the media... A glory that changes the status of brazilian table tennis. Great day!

 

[dingyibvs]

Just watched the match, HOT DAAAAM what a performance by Hugo! IMO this isn't just a one off either, because he didn't just get hot, he changed his play style. I do want to see how he does with other balls but I think he might be the biggest threat to the CNT in the years to come.

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

Brazil is celebrating Hugo's historic victory, with a lot of coverage in the media... A glory that changes the status of brazilian table tennis. Great day!

back in 2017-2018 I was taking lessons from Ryusuke Sakamoto.

I asked him who he thought would be able to challenge the Chinese to become a World or Olympic champion. I thought he’d tell me Harimoto. But among all to my surprise, he told me Calderano ! He has something that everyone else doesn’t have !

Kudos to his judgment !

 

[NextLevel]

back in 2017-2018 I was taking lessons from Ryusuke Sakamoto.

I asked him who he thought would be able to challenge the Chinese to become a World or Olympic champion. I thought he’d tell me Harimoto. But among all to my surprise, he told me Calderano ! He has something that everyone else doesn’t have !

Kudos to his judgment !

From what my coach used to tell me, you always felt Calderano ans Harimoto were thr best athletes on the hall whenever you watched them train. Higo just seemed too far behind in tablecraft but it definitely was there here. We woll see whether ball changes and Chinese analytics teams can change that. I am sure they are already on the job.

 

[NetProphet]

back in 2017-2018 I was taking lessons from Ryusuke Sakamoto.

I asked him who he thought would be able to challenge the Chinese to become a World or Olympic champion. I thought he’d tell me Harimoto. But among all to my surprise, he told me Calderano ! He has something that everyone else doesn’t have !

Kudos to his judgment !

Well it's been a long time coming.
Hugo has hugged the top 5 for a while now with only fleeting success V Chinese players.
It's like everything just clicked with him this week. He played a high risk game today and almost never missed, it was miraculous.
So, can he continue to deliver that level?
I suspect the answer to be no.
He will need prime Ma Long levels of consistency to continue to take big titles from China over the coming years and while loving his victory today so many of his 'poor?' past results are still rattling around in my mind (XP 2 wks ago, Lim Jonghoon and Jang Woojin recently also)
None of them results to be ashamed of but also not suggesting a streak like we saw this week.
They just leave me expecting a regression to his past.
But hopefully not!

 

[Takkyu_wa_inochi]

From what my coach used to tell me, you always felt Calderano ans Harimoto were thr best athletes on the hall whenever you watched them train. Higo just seemed too far behind in tablecraft but it definitely was there here. We woll see whether ball changes and Chinese analytics teams can change that. I am sure they are already on the job.

To put some more context , Sakamoto was still at the time the personal coach of Kenta Matsudaira and it didn’t go that well at least in terms of results.
Kenta was a very early talent, like Harimoto he wasn’t even 15 when he played the world champs and almost surprised Ma Lin in WTTC 2009.
He didn’t say it directly but I think he believes TT is a sport where athleticism is a key factor undervalued in Japan, and that Kenta lacked it and Harimoto would probably become another Kenta.

TBH Harimoto takes the physical aspect of TT very seriously and has changed a lot since his early days and he’s achieved already a lot throughout his transformation and he may not be done yet he’s very young still !

Obviously Calderano is a beast and it must be more scary to face this giant than Tomo

 

[Tiz]

Honestly this was in the air: LSD's match vs Anton Kallberg was very close, and same goes for WQC vs Duda. The Chinese team was lucky on those 2 occasions. Luck was over in the final.

 

[NextLevel]

Honestly this was in the air: LSD's match vs Anton Kallberg was very close, and same goes for WQC vs Duda. The Chinese team was lucky on those 2 occasions. Luck was over in the final.

Hindsight usually has 20:10 vision.

 

[banbekas]

Well it's been a long time coming.
Hugo has hugged the top 5 for a while now with only fleeting success V Chinese players.
It's like everything just clicked with him this week. He played a high risk game today and almost never missed, it was miraculous.
So, can he continue to deliver that level?
I suspect the answer to be no.
He will need prime Ma Long levels of consistency to continue to take big titles from China over the coming years and while loving his victory today so many of his 'poor?' past results are still rattling around in my mind (XP 2 wks ago, Lim Jonghoon and Jang Woojin recently also)
None of them results to be ashamed of but also not suggesting a streak like we saw this week.
They just leave me expecting a regression to his past.
But hopefully not!

He doesn't really need to be hot week in and week out. He could be the usual him for WTT tour and find his mojo in the events that actually matters, e.g. Olympic, WTTC, WTT Finals, etc. just like ZJK.

 

[NetProphet]

He doesn't really need to be hot week in and week out. He could be the usual him for WTT tour and find his mojo in the events that actually matters, e.g. Olympic, WTTC, WTT Finals, etc. just like ZJK.

Of course
But that's still a huge ask.
A bigger ask than anything we realistically expected from him prior to this week, I think.
But I don't think it's something you can switch on and off at will either, it's a place you need to live. Hopefully Hugo will move right in, replace the furniture and make it his, and hasn't just rented a room for the week! 😉

Looking at the challenge ahead I say Ma Long levels of consistency.
I've heard and read it so many times, oh Ma Long, the greatest FH in the world and I always debate people on it. They quote his titles (fair) and goat status (maybe) and deduce from that, because his FH is his biggest weapon then it must be the greatest FH in the world.
I always disagree. I've seen plenty of FHs as good (imo) but most have won a fraction of what he has and some have won nothing.
Now, I don't doubt the quality or consistency of his FH, it's astonishingly good (stating the obvious here).
What I play down is it's contribution to his wins, titles, record and status.
If it was just FH then others would have won as much as him. So it's not just FH, it's FH and EVERYTHING ELSE combined. And so many of other aspects are underrated (imo).
In short he has the brain of a TT genius and has so often found ways to win when others couldn't.

This is what Hugo will need to show now along with his levels of attacking brilliance that was on show this week if he is to take a few more major titles ahead of WCQ and LSD and then, hopefully, take position as the world no. 1.
He's shown now that maybe it's actually possible. This has rocked the current establishment and upsidedowned things a bit in the top 5!
Just more consistency at that level required in order to stamp it! No more silly losses to players he is better than.

Long winded and flowery post from me I know and with lots to disagree on too I'm sure but I can't see how else he can climb to the top of that mountain.
Streaky once a year won't do it.

If this is the real Hugo then we have to see more of him!! 👊

 

[blahness]

Have you seen last year how he came back against Lin Gaoyuan at the same event? Ma Long would’ve found a solution. Lin Shidong literally played right into Hugo’s hand starting from the second game. I’m not saying he would’ve 100% won but I’d have rather bet on him even seeing Hugo’s performance today.

Only if Ma Long was training systematically, then yes. But not the Ma Long these days. Fan Zhendong would also be able to do it if he was systematically training instead of being a wannabe celebrity.

CNT is quite vulnerable without Ma Long and Fan Zhendong. The new gen skills just aren't that strong yet.

 

[blahness]

The genius in the 2nd set, was that Hugo started to serve long with very high quality (deep, fast, well placed, spinny, lots of spin variation) This really threw a spanner in the LSD chiquita plan and forced him to push, which allowed Hugo to get the 1st topspin with more quality. Even when LSD chiquita it was a tentative chiquita which allowed Hugo to blast a counterloopkill.

He also started varying the short serve placement all the way from short FH to wide BH. So LSD couldn't get high quality on his receive.

On the other hand, he also stopped short pushing all the time and introduced some more disturbing long pushes, push flicks together with his excellent short push. This meant that LSD couldn't get the perfect timing for the push and also extracted a few errors from his opening loops. Also Hugo was really punishing the weak opening loops with extreme power and consistency so LSD had to force himself to play more extreme opening loops which meant more mistakes.

Basically Hugo was doing Ma Lin v2.0 except with both BH and FH loopkills. This perfectly avoided his weaknesses in speed and close table rallying - there is no rally if he can finish the point outright.

 

[blahness]

Hugo's power is rent free in his head, lol

LSD's short game is solied- not as delicate as ML's and ZJK's but definitely up there with WCQ. The thing is, he doesn't really rely on it; his backhand flick is just out of this world, I'd say even better than ZJK and FZD. It's the very reason why he was able to go toe to toe with FZD even took down ML.

Problem is, Hugo just blasted it back with even more force today. Usually, players play it safe in that situation which gives LSD the chance to press the attack. Not Hugo; he just went all in and blasted it back. As you can see, LSD couldn't wrap his head around it- nobody has ever done that to him. It rattled his confidence and threw off his game.

You know how it is in TT, most of the game is in the head.

Yep. A lot of LSD's weaker "safe" opening loops and chiquitas just got blasted with no mercy by Hugo. Reminded me of Ryu Seung Min blasting Wang Hao's safe opening loops and chiquitas in 2004 Athens. Worse, those Hugo loopkills were outright unblockable.

 

[Robin0910]

Only if Ma Long was training systematically, then yes. But not the Ma Long these days. Fan Zhendong would also be able to do it if he was systematically training instead of being a wannabe celebrity.

CNT is quite vulnerable without Ma Long and Fan Zhendong. The new gen skills just aren't that strong yet.

Obviously. An out of shape Ma Long wouldn’t have beaten Hugo yesterday but I never stated anything like that. The Ma Long we saw at China Smash would’ve beaten Hugo imo.

 

[NextLevel]

Obviously. An out of shape Ma Long wouldn’t have beaten Hugo yesterday but I never stated anything like that. The Ma Long we saw at China Smash would’ve beaten Hugo imo.

That Ma Long lost to Li Shidong who Hugo beat. We can argue this any way we choose. The ball didn't favor the CNT at Asian Champs and it didn't here either. But the seamless ball was not used at China Smash.

 

[pongfugrasshopper]

Hugo's World Cup title should put his ranking points at 4575 next week Tueseday. This is currently below Tomo's 4725; however, Tomo has expiring points which will drop his ranking points to 4550. Thus, Hugo should end up WR#3 and Tomo WR#4. Exciting times.

 

[Robin0910]

That Ma Long lost to Li Shidong who Hugo beat. We can argue this any way we choose. The ball didn't favor the CNT at Asian Champs and it didn't here either. But the seamless ball was not used at China Smash.

Yeah, they used different balls there but it’s not black and white. LSD lost to Hugo mainly because he couldn’t keep the ball short and got destroyed when pushing long/ half-long (there were other weaknesses exploited too).
Ma Long’s short game is one of the best if not the best in the world and his play style is completely different from LSD. His works more against Hugo as he would force Fh to Fh rallies which LSD didn’t force since backhand is his strong suit too.
But as you said, we can’t be too sure because this ball was seamless and I don’t know if I’ve ever seen Ma Long play with seamless balls.

And what also supports my confidence is that their last 3 encounters were
4-0 (China Smash)
3-0
4-1
All to Ma Long’s and their last encounter actually at China Smash where Hugo got destroyed.