(by Steve Hopkins, photo USATT)
The 2022 ITTF Pan American U11 and U13 Championships were held this week in the Dominican Republic. TeamUSA swept the Hopes events. Two US Teams entered the Boys’ Team (U11) event and both made the Semifinal, where unfortunately they faced each other. Team A of Jason Liu and Kyler Chen topped Team B of Arjun Kumar and Caillou Chen to advance – and then USA’s Team A won the final 3-0 over Ecuador. The Girls teams had a similar result, but they faced each other in the finals with US Team B (Abigail Yu and Irene Yeoh) topping US Team A (Tiana Piyadasa and Sophia Chen). The Boys Doubles title also went to Liu and Chen, and the Girl’s Doubles title also went to Yu and Yeoh. And to finish the All-USA sweep, Kyler Chen and Irene Yeoh won the Hopes Mixed Doubles title (over USA Teammates Jason Liu and Sophia Chen).
TeamUSA also won the Mini Cadet Girls Team event (Genelia William and Amina Batkhuyag defeated the other US entry of Aria Shi and Mandy Yu) 3-2. In the Mini Cadet Girls Doubles event, the script was flipped with Shi and Yu defeating Batkhuyag and William 3-2 in the Final. Puerto Rico won the Mini Cadet Boys Team event (a 3-0 win over Colombia). Puerto Rico’s Steven Moreno and Enrique Rios also won the Cadet Boys Doubles (over USA’s Lin Ryan and Winston Wu). In Mini Cadet Mixed Doubles it was USA and Puerto Rico matched up in the Final, with TeamUSA winning (Lin Ryan and Amina Bathuyag) 3-2.
In U13 Girls Singles, USA’s Aria Shi finished second to Venezuela’s Dakota Ferrer. The top two Puerto Rican boys each reached the U13 Final with Steven Moreno topping Enrique Rios 3-1. In U11 Boys Singles, Andy Maqueira of Cuba topped USA’s Jason Liu 3-1 in the Final. In Girls U11, it was all USA in the Semifinals with Yu, Chen, Piyadasa and Yeoh all advancing to the Final 4. In the end, it was Yeoh 3-0 in the Final over Yu.
Larry Hodges (the U11 Boys’ Team Coach) wrote this detailed article at the USATT website.
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