(by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor)

Winner just under one year ago when the tournament was staged in the Canadian city of Burnaby, Puerto Rico’s Adriana Diaz defends her Girls’ Singles title at the forthcoming 2017 ITTF-Panam Junior Championships.

Play commences in the Argentine capital city of Buenos Aires on Tuesday 20th June and concludes on Sunday 25th June.

At the final hurdle in Burnaby, Adriana Diaz beat Brazil’s Bruna Takahashi to claim the top prize in the inaugural year of the event.

Both 16 years old, they could well meet in the final again this year; in fact the names of five of the players who reached the quarter-final round of the Girls’ Singles event in Burnaby appear on the Buenos Aires entry list.

Additional to Adriana Diaz and Bruna Takahashi, the names of Crystal Wang of the United States, Brazil’s Alexia Takahashi Nakashima and Canada’s Alicia Cote are all included on this year’s entry list.

Furthermore, depending on the draw, two of the Burnaby quarter-final duels could be repeated. Last year, in the lower half of the draw, Crystal Wang beat Alexia Nakashima, Bruna Takahashi accounted for Alice Cote.

The one notable difference this year is that as opposed to being the no.2 seed, Bruna Takahashi is the no.3 seed. Currently, on the Under 18 Girls’ World Rankings, Bruna Takahashi is at no.16, Crystal Wang is one place higher at no.15; thus in Buenos Aires it is the North American who occupies the second spot.

Adriana Diaz, named at no.8 on the junior list, is the top seed once again. Amy Wang of the United States is the no.4 seed, followed by Alexia Nakashima and Alicia Cote. Rachel Sung, like Crystal Wang and Amy Wang, from the United States alongside Canada’s Ivy Liao complete the top eight names.

A total of 52 girls will compete in Buenos Aires.

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