The Final Day at the El Salvador Junior and Cadet Open Junior Girls Teams

(By Bruce Liu)
The Final Day at the El Salvador Junior and Cadet Open Junior Girls Teams
Superb performance of the US Juniors in El Salvador. In addition to the Gold they won for the Junior Girls Teams on day two, they won three more medals, tow Golds and one Bronze!
13-year-old Sarika Ahire of Texas had a tremendous tournament. She had been very busy throughout the tournament. Made to the main draw in both Mini-Cadet Girls Singles and Cadet Girls Singles – and went deep in both! In the Cadet Girls Singles, she stopped at the semi-finals settling for a Bronze. In the Mini-Cadet Girls Singles, she made it all the way to the final and had a grand finale by winning it 3-0. What a performance! This was Sarika’s first international competition. She defeated two ranked players in the tournament. It will be interesting to see her initial world ranking on the ITTF September 2017 update.
Ishana on the other hand, only had to focus on her Junior Girls Singles event after the Teams. Waltzed to the main draw. Passing first three rounds quite easily – 4-0 in 8’s, 4-1 in quarterfinals, and 4-0 in semifinals. However, before the semifinals, she started to have stomachache although she toughened it out. Ishana had been undefeated in Singles at this point. Could she do it in the final? Turned out Ishana did although facing tough competition from the top seed Lucia Cordero of Guatemala. Ishana trailed 1:6 in the first game before she started to sweat but managed to mount her comeback to 4:6, 5:7, 8:9, and 9:10. However, it was too late. She lost the first game 9:11. Nonetheless, the effort wasn’t wasted. The momentum being built last through the next four games. Ishana won four straight games after that and secured her Junior Girls Singles title! (9-11, 11-8 , 11-8, 13-11, 11-6)
A great performance for Ishana. Two Gold medals for the tournament. On the way, she defeated all other junior girls with world ranking. While seeded second, she defeated top (twice), third, fourth, and fifth seeds!
Two girls, three Golds and one Bronze. Congratulations to Team USA.

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