by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor

Winners and runners in the Boys’ Singles and Girls’ Singles event one day earlier in Guatemala gained automatic selection.

Thus the decision to be made was as to who would join Panama’s Jacobo Vahnish and Argentina’s Matias Velarde in the Boys’ Team and who would line up alongside Chile’s Valentina Rios and Brazil’s Livia Lima in the counterpart Girls’ Team.

Brazil’s Diogo Silva and Mexico’s Dario Arce emerged as the players to complete the Boys’ Team with Colombia’s Santiago Montes and Peru’s Adolfo Cucho being the reserves. Meanwhile, for the girls; the successful players to complete the four player outfit were Puerto Rico’s Fabiola Diaz and Mexico’s Marbella Aceves.

Diogo Silva booked his place courtesy of success against Dario Arce (11-5, 11-9, 12-11, 13-11) and Santiago Montes (11-7, 11-4, 11-6) in the first knock-out tournament. Defeat for Dario Arce but in the second event, the Mexican seized his chance; he beat Adolfo Cucho (11-7, 11-9, 11-8) and Santiago Montes (11-3, 11-7, 11-7) to secure his selection.

No great moments of drama; however, that was not the situation in the counterpart Girls’ Singles event. Fabiola Diaz secured her place by emerging successful by the very minimal margin in her first stage knock-out contests.

She recovered from a two games to nil deficit to beat Marbella Aceves by the very narrowest of margins (4-11, 10-12, 11-9, 11-8, 11-9), before overcoming Alejandra Alzate (12-10, 6-11, 11-4, 11-13, 11-9) to secure her team place.

A narrow defeat for Marbella Aceves, a hard fought win secured her place on the flight to Fiji; in the match to determine the second name, Marbella Aceves accounted for Alejandra Alzate (11-8, 11-6, 8-11, 12-10).

The selection follows the principle that an association may be represented by only one player in each of the Boys’ Team and Girls’ Team selection.

Latin America ITTF World Cadet Challenge Selection Tournament: Selected Teams and Results (Sunday 13th August)