by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Editor
Represented by Thiago Monteiro, Eric Jouti and Vitor Ishiy; Brazil opened their account with a three-one victory over the Ecuadorian trio formed by Alberto Miño, Adrian Cabrera and Emiliano Riofrio. No changes to the selection, they followed with a similar success in opposition to the Mexican outfit comprising Salvador Uribe, Marcos Madrid and Ricardo Villa.
The Brazilian to suffer was the most experienced member of their line-up; against Ecuador, 36 year old Thiago Monteiro was beaten by Alberto Miño (8-11, 11-7, 11-8, 11-8), in opposition to Mexico he experienced defeat when facing Marcos Madrid (8-11, 13-11, 11-7, 11-4).
Furthermore, against Ecuador, the contest almost went the full distance. In the fourth match of the fixture Alberto Miño won the first two games against Eric Jouti before standing on the precipice of victory in the third game, prior to losing by the very narrowest of margins in the fifth (9-11, 9-11, 12-10, 11-6, 11-9).
“In the first two games I made mistakes returning service, I managed to change and as the match progressed my focus improved; for me with the addition of Canada and the United States, it doesn’t change things much. We should still seek to win all the titles.” Eric Jouti
A brave effort from Alberto Miño; it was the same against Colombia later in the day. He accounted for both Favert Fernandez (11-4, 8-11, 18-16, 11-4) and Julian Ramos (11-7, 11-5, 11-5) but he was his team’s only winner; a three-two defeat was the end result.
Moments of concern for Brazil, not for Argentina; selecting Gaston Alto, Horacio Cifuentes and Pablo Tabachnik throughout; they recorded a three-nil win against the Dominican Republic’s Samuel Galvez, Emil Santos and Isaac Vila, prior to defeating Canada’s Jeremy Hazin, Marko Medjugorac and Terence Young by the same margin.
Successful starts for Brazil and Argentina, it was the same for Chile, the no.4 seeds; in their one and only fixture of the day, represented by Gustavo Gomez, Felipe Olivares and Juan Lamadrid, they defeated Guatemala’s Hector Gatica, Kevin Montufar and Kevin Soto by three matches to nil.
A positive start for Chile; alas not for Cuba, the no.3 seeds, who could not travel owing to Hurricane Irma. They had to concede their proposed fixture against Peru who, with Rodrigo Hidalgo, Bryan Blas and Jhon Lou on duty, completed the day with a three-nil win in opposition to Costa Rica’s Jeison Martinez, Daniel Araya and Jose Perez.
Defeat by three matches to nil; earlier in the day with Roger Arroyo preferred to Daniel Arraya, Costa Rica had suffered the same margin of defeat when facing the United States trio formed by Sharon Alguetti, Adar Alguetti and Nicholas Tito.
Play in the group stage of the Men’s Team event concludes on Tuesday 12th September.
