(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT)
Singles started on Sunday, with top seeds in action on Monday. at the ITTF Pan American Championships in Rock Hill, SC. Top seed Hugo Calderano won his first two matches 4-0 and 4-1 to advance to face USA’s Sid Naresh in one Quarterfinal matchup. In the second section of the draw, USA’s Nandan Naresh fell to Nicolas Burgos and Canada’s Eugene Wang fell to Brazil’s Felipe Arado to set up a Burgos-Arado matchup on Tuesday.
In the bottom half of the draw Argentina’s Horacio Cifuentes topped Puerto Rico’s Angel Naranjo 4-2 and Brazil’s Leonardo Iizuka defeated USA’s Jishan Liang – leaving Cifuentes and Iizuka to battle Tuesday afternoon. And in the bottom section of the draw, USA’s Kanak Jha defeated Brazil’s Guilherme Teodoro 4-2 and Gustavo Gomez of Chile defeated Marcos Madrid 4-2 to set up the final Quarterfinal matchup (Jha-Gomez).
In Women’s Singles, 7 of the top 8 seeds advanced to the Quarters. Top seeded Bruna Takahashi will face USA’s Jessica Reyes Lai, USA’s Sally Moyland will face Canada’s Mo Zhang, and USA’s Lily Zhang will face Daniela Ortega of Chile. Second seed Adriana Diaz easily advanced winning her two matches 4-0 and 4-0. Diaz will face Chile’s Zhiying Zeng, who upset Brazil’s Giulia Takahashi 4-0.
The Quarterfinals of Singles and Doubles will be played Tuesday, with Team events starting at the end of the week and extending into the weekend.
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