"Fear of success is one of the new fears I've heard about lately," related Jerry Seinfeld. "And I think it's definitely a sign that we're running out of fears. A person suffering from fear of success is definitely scraping the bottom of the fear barrel." Of course, it is a violation of the American Psychiatric Association's "Goldwater rule" to broadcast armchair diagnoses of public figures. Still, it seems clear that something is not quite right with one of the world's top table tennis players, and it looks a lot like the dreaded (or at least groaned-at) fear of success. Twice in less than a week, Brazil's Hugo Calderano, the 7th-ranked player in the world, has let a 2-0 lead slip away in a best-of-five match. While this is certainly not unheard of in the highly unpredictable era of 11-point games, it does make one wonder. On Friday, March 5, Calderano met Simon Gauzy of France in the Quarterfinals of the World Table Tennis (WTT) Contender, a big-money spectacle in Doha, Brazil representing the return of international table tennis after a year in a COVID-induced coma. After winning the first two games comfortably, Calderano suddenly went from dominating the match to being a spectator with a the best seat in the house, mustering only 7, 5 and 8 points in the last three games. Granted, the world #20 Gauzy is no slouch, a creative and unpredictable player who upset world #2 Xu Xin at the 2019 World Championships. Additionally, Gauzy knows Calderano's game as well as anyone. The two form the backbone of Liebherr Ochsenhausen, one of the top teams in the German Bundesliga. Conversely, Calderano knows Gauzy's game as well as anyone, and should not lose three games in a row to anyone. Unfortunately for Calderano, old habits die hard. Today in Doha, Calderano tried his luck again in the even more lucrative WTT Star Contender tournament. In the round of 16, he met up-and-coming world #31 Darko Jorgic of Slovenia. Once again, Calderano cruised in the first two games, and held match point on his racket at 10-9 in the third. Three straight points from Jorgic kept things interesting, and especially so when he won the next two games to force a decider. In the winner-take-all fifth, Calderano regrouped and claimed a 4-1 lead. His advantage proved short-lived, however, as Jorgic won seven of the next eight points. Back and forth they went until it was Jorgic with triple match point, 10-7. No one crouches lower than Calderano on receive of service, his eyes barely poking above the level of the table like a hungry alligator lurking in the water. He showed a much-needed flash of killer instinct and won four straight points, claiming his second match point on a spectacular rally at 10-all in which he recovered a net ball in the middle of a furious counterlooping rally without missing a beat. In a game of runs, it appeared that Calderano had gotten hot at the right time. Once again with the match on his racket, Calderano's third ball forehand loop sailed long. Jorgic claimed his fourth match point with a solid forehand exchange, and Calderano extinguished all drama when he anticlimactically missed his serve. Calderano has carved out a niche as a perennial contender on the ITTF World Tour (now rebranded as WTT), but his success seems geographically limited. He has won an abundance of Pan Am/Latin American championships but nothing to speak of outside of South America. His two singles titles on the ITTF World Tour came at the Brazil Open in 2013 and 2017. To be a world champion, Calderano must either wait for the games to come to his backyard or learn how to go out and win in the world. Is it a fear of success keeping Hugo Calderano from greatness, or simply the success of fear?

More at Butterfly Online