(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT)

With the delay in action on Monday in Havana (power outage), there was some question as to whether the Singles and Doubles Finals at the 2023 ITTF Pan American Championships would be played on Wednesday as scheduled. As it turned out, the organizers moved forward by adding extra rounds and the Singles and Doubles titles were awarded as originally scheduled.

Men’s Singles finished almost as expected, with top seeded Hugo Calderano taking the title.  Calderano’s path to the Final included wins over Rogelio Castro, USA’s Jishan Liang, Marcelo Aguirre, and Brian Afanador.  Chile’s Nicolas Burgos was a surprise Finalist, upsetting Vitor Ishiy and then Alberto Mino and then Santiago Lorenzo along the way.  Ultimately, Calderano took the title with a 4-1 win.

In Women’s Singles, both Finalists were surprises.  The top seed, Puerto Rico’s Adriana Diaz fell to USA’s Amy Wang in one Semifinal, and second seed, USA’s Lily Zhang, fell to Brazil’s Bruna Takahashi in the other Semifinal.  That left Wang and Takahashi to battle for the title, and it was USA’s Amy Wang coming from behind to win three of the final four games for the 4-3 win.

Chile won two of the three doubles titles with Burgos/Gomez winning Men’s Doubles and Burgos/Vega winning Mixed Doubles.  The Women’s Doubles title went to Adriana and Melanie Diaz who had a 3-1 win over Mo Zhang and Ivy Liao of Canada.

The Men’s and Women’s Teams events should kick off on Thursday – with the top two finishers in each event gaining automatic entry to the Paris Olympics.

Lots of quality table tennis on tap all week long – we’ll have more updates soon.

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