Calderano and his new equipment

[Matt Hetherington]

?
His trusted HAL was Arylate (no carbon) so why go back even further?

At that point everything felt not right for him. It’s hard to explain and it’s probably not my place to go into detail more. He went back to all wood because he needed to re-ground himself and find some reliability in his game I guess.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

Also Zeio it’s all very well to quote a post from January to prove a point today and seemingly discredit me, but believe it or not things can change over time.

I hope you are enjoying yourself 🤪

 

[OwenG]

So can anyone say what he is using right now?

 

[PhantomCSS]

"Hugo makes his own decisions, he could change blade tomorrow and I, and others, would have no idea about it"
-Matt

So can anyone say what he is using right now?

No, maybe some clues by photos but only that

 

[The0rigina1]

Both his rubbers and blade still come out of the same factories as before. So I doubt there is much change.

So you're saying all ADK blades and all ESN rubbers are all literally the same?

 

[The0rigina1]

Hugo is free to use whichever blade he chooses, we produced the ARY-x for a reason and if that’s ultimately what he decides to use then he will. The supplier sent all of his blades with a green and yellow handle because that’s what he liked initially, I have asked them whenever they send blades to Hugo to use the correct handle colour so people can distinguish which blade is which. I can tell you for a fact that he has just been sent more of both blade, the carbon and the non-carbon some of which I sent myself from the US.

It’s easy to sit in a forum and yap, you think working with table tennis players is easy I suggest you try it sometime.

Hugo makes his own decisions, he could change blade tomorrow and I, and others, would have no idea about it, so to say people are being misled is just silly. This is not some giant conspiracy theory, although you seem to revel in pointing fingers and playing detective.

Ok when's my first day at joola?

 

[chinacurious]

So you're saying all ADK blades and all ESN rubbers are all literally the same?

What a moronic interpretation of what I said. It only means that he can still get pretty much the same equipment whether he is signed with Xiom or Joola.

 

[zeio]

So can anyone say what he is using right now?

Not even Joola Japan can answer that, with his profile being in the state of "fill in the blanks" for several months now...

How hard is it to just use "custom" as a placeholder? Oh, it wouldn't look good on Joola after they had been caught cheating in pickleball...

Joola Japan:
Hugo Calderano
DOB: 1996/6/22
Highest WR: 3rd
Racket:
Rubber:
https://joola.co.jp/pages/team-joola-table-tennis

 

[zeio]

And FWIW, below is what Joola USA writes on their website.

https://joola.com/pages/hugo-calderano

Hugo Calderano uses Charged rubber on his forehand and Dynamic rubber on his backhand.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

You're literally hunting for ghosts Zeio. What's your endgame here?

Citing subjective commentary and opinions online as your evidence again underscores my point. You will believe and present anything that fits your narrative, and then bend it to suit your case, and if presented with objective facts in response, you will dismiss them. You have treated every interaction with me as if I am somehow on trial for crimes against the table tennis community, and then you cry unethical when your conduct in this forum is brought into question.

Joola Japan haven't updated that part of the website since Hugo's equipment was announced and launched, ok must be foul play. If I email them now and ask them to update it will you take before and after screenshots and accuse me of scrubbing your imaginary evidence, or do I have your permission to go ahead and fix that? (rhetorical question).

What benefit do you think there is to intentionally leaving it blank? Don't you think that would just make people ask more questions like you are, rather than putting in what he is using? I'm not sure what you think they would gain by leaving it blank on purpose. They have a very small team and a lot of work to take care of across both sports, you'll have to excuse them. With the internet you can find it anyway so if leaving it blank was the strategy why would we have published it on other Joola sites?

As for your pickleball backlink and blatant insinuation, it's interesting that you chose to find a video that shared a negative perspective as your so called evidence. You continue to look only for material which helps drive your negative perspective of the JOOLA brand, remaining blind BY CHOICE to anything to the contrary.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

Are you aware that Liam and Kenji both have their own JOOLA blades? I think you spend enough time online to know this as an objective fact, Zeio, so I won't cite any evidence if that's ok.

Is it then also curious to you that Pitchford on JOOLA Japan is shown as using the Zhou Qihao blade, and Kenji as using the Trinity (the blade he chose to use at the beginning of his sponsorship). What would the reasons for that be? Intentional also????

You spend enough time online to have done that little bit of digging, no? But why would you do that, you only want to highlight what you want to have people focus on.

Also if the page had been updated Hugo's highest WR would be 2 not 3!

 

[Egon]

@Matt Hetherington , his job is to get emotions out of you. He's just a AI troll. And by the way, I've said this many times and he doesn't deny it, he just ignores it. I wonder, will he ignore it again this time, or will he write something?
An ordinary person cannot spend so much time and produce so much information, tables with dates, and everything else.

 

[Matt Hetherington]

@Matt Hetherington , his job is to get emotions out of you. He's just a AI troll. And by the way, I've said this many times and he doesn't deny it, he just ignores it. I wonder, will he ignore it again this time, or will he write something?
An ordinary person cannot spend so much time and produce so much information, tables with dates, and everything else.

An AI would cite more reliable sources and also present different opinions before drawing a conclusion 🤭

 

[JustANoob]

@Matt Hetherington , his job is to get emotions out of you. He's just a AI troll. And by the way, I've said this many times and he doesn't deny it, he just ignores it. I wonder, will he ignore it again this time, or will he write something?
An ordinary person cannot spend so much time and produce so much information, tables with dates, and everything else.

Absolutely right, he provided no new information and just put in some random rage bait in there thats completely out of context for the topic, pure toxicity.

 

[The0rigina1]

What a moronic interpretation of what I said. It only means that he can still get pretty much the same equipment whether he is signed with Xiom or Joola.

That's what you said, isn't it? Both joola and xiom rubbers are from ESN, so there's little change. As if companies just put their name on ESN rubbers without doing their own actual R&D and testing.

 

[Egon]

An AI would cite more reliable sources and also present different opinions before drawing a conclusion 🤭

It's very interesting what he will write now.

 

[chinacurious]

That's what you said, isn't it? Both joola and xiom rubbers are from ESN, so there's little change. As if companies just put their name on ESN rubbers without doing their own actual R&D and testing.

That is not what I said. The meaning of what I said is that Joola has the capability of providing Calderano with the same equipment that he used when he was sponsored by Xiom because they have the same rubber and blade supplier.
It does NOT follow that those suppliers are only capable of producing one kind of blade or rubber.

 

[NextLevel]

So you're saying all ADK blades and all ESN rubbers are all literally the same?

He was clearly saying that given that manufacturers are the same, there is easily potential for them to meet the same quality level. Obviously, there might be some technical barriers as each brand sometimes has special information, but this is at a level of nuance that he would accept but without getting into details, it doesn't deny his main point. And it is definitely and easily more relevant to blades than to rubbers, but has applicability to both.

 

[NextLevel]

Obviously the fact that it is Matt unfortunately or fortunately lets me give zeio more rope than this behavior deserves, but it clearly is a form of trolling. Trying to use "facts" to impugn the credibility of an individual pretty much completely unrelated to them is just trolling.

I am struggling to see what the benefit is of zeio's pushing Joola's purported crimes in pickleball to its handling of Hugo, especially when you are dealing with someone who is trying to explain the limitations of handling TT equipment marketing from the perspective of an insider, and rather than take it as information from a perspective that will will educate most people, you try to accuse him of covering up something. But maybe something interesting will be unearthed. But it will only be unearthed by dealing with relevant facts, not by focusing on hearsay or unsubstantiated claims.

In fact, some of Matt's responses at least give zeio's custom blade theories strong support. After all, Matt has conceded they make Hugo's blades with the same handle for both the Ary-X and the Ary-C and that Matt is trying to stop that, though maybe that concession to customization is not enough for zeio and there must be something more sinister at work.

I mean, it does give you insight into the limitations of Butterfly reflecting what a player is currently using accurately. Are the deviations sometimes advertising? Maybe. But sometimes, they are clearly being slow to reflect what a player is using. And given the limitations of communicating between marketing and the website content control etc., it can sometimes just be mistakes, temporary or permanent. And usually, when the information is wrong, it is more about the player than the sponsor. That at least has been my experience. Two of the usual examples are Freitas and Dima, and they were both good enough players to ultimately end up with Butterfly when they couldn't professionally use the rubbers of their sponsoring brands (Tibhar and Donic respectively).

I just don't get where all this is going to, I have seen professional coaches on other forums get upset by less, it has unfortunately gotten to a point where zeio thinks this is some kind of righteous cause (no, it isn't). Rather than simply a case where maybe he should just let it be since the insights are all round valuable and are just one person's insider perspective from one major brand in table tennis.

My position has always been that the implication of these equipment differences are often overblown though I can see how others may differ. The cases of Freitas and Dima are the clearcut travesties and given how sponsorship works, there are many pros who use Butterfly blades and/or rubbers because they find them more consistent than other brands, but in addition to there existing examples of players switching to ESN rubbers because they preferred them (Drinkhall comes to mind), most cases are more like what we get with Hugo where the blades are very similar to what is being commercially sold but might be heavier etc. because those things work with pros but may not do as well with the general market. And of course, wood is a living thing etc.

 

[zeio]

That's what you said, isn't it? Both joola and xiom rubbers are from ESN, so there's little change. As if companies just put their name on ESN rubbers without doing their own actual R&D and testing.

At the end of the day, that's how the end users perceive it. Sad but true. Even Masami, a former Daiki Rubber tech, thinks that way and yet here we are wasting time arguing over this.

雨果ary-x，这样看是雨果hal换皮？ (Hugo ARY-X is just a reskinned Hugo HAL?)
https://tieba.baidu.com/p/10890471275
孙笑川烤红鼠 有点难绷 这是直接复制了吗 感觉和hal一模一样
IP属地:四川来自Android客户端2楼2026-07-24 06:30回复
(It's a bit hard to swallow. Was this a direct copy? It looks exactly like HAL)

敢动中国911 你别说还真是。。。单看侧面这不就是hal嘛
IP属地:山东来自Android客户端4楼2026-07-24 08:56收起回复
(You know what, it really is... Just looking at the side, isn't that HAL?)

道德与立法原理 本来就是换皮 ary-c本来和chorme一模一样 现在换成了绿纤维
IP属地:重庆来自Android客户端6楼2026-07-24 09:28收起回复
(It's just a reskin. ARY-C was originally exactly the same as chorme, now it's been replaced with green fiber)


宇航员大N1 做工不一样，hal看着做工更扎实一点（），
IP属地:四川来自iPhone客户端7楼2026-07-24 10:08收起回复
(The workmanship is different. HAL looks more solidly made)
孙笑川烤红鼠: 对的
2026-7-24 10:14回复
(Right)

maoruichun 像又不像。颜色有点像
。不像的地方是新款一眼看到纤维层，老款很淡不仔细看容易漏。
IP属地:上海来自Android客户端10楼2026-07-24 10:51收起回复
(It's similar yet different. The colors are somewhat similar
The difference is that the new model clearly shows the fiber layer, while the old model is very light and easily overlooked if not carefully observed)
孙笑川烤红鼠: 你看层上发的实物图 纤维几乎一模一样，厚度也是
2026-7-24 11:22回复
(The fibers in the product photos posted above are almost identical, and the thickness is also the same)

PatrickL2008 这个买得要比内置绿芳碳那款还要贵几百块啊…
IP属地:福建来自Android客户端11楼2026-07-24 16:47回复
(This one is several hundred yuan more expensive than the one with built-in green ALC...)