by Ian Marshall, ITTF Publications Manager

A hard fought three-two win was the order of the day with Yanapong Panagitgun the thorn in the Argentine side; in the second match of the fixture he beat Santiago Lorenzo (11-4, 11-6, 11-6), in the fourth he accounted for Martin Bentancor (11-8, 11-5, 11-8).

However, those were the only successes for his team; Dominic Song Jun was beaten by Martin Bentancor in the opening match of the fixture (11-6, 10-12, 11-5, 7-11, 11-7) and in the fifth and deciding contest of the engagement by Santiago Lorenzo (12-10, 6-11, 11-5, 11-9). Crucially in the third match of the final, the Argentine duo recorded a four games win (11-9, 12-10, 8-11, 11-5).

“It was a surprise; we were not expecting to win. In Santiago we were the second seeds; we knew it would be a tough match; maybe that’s what made us fight so hard and play with great heart. We looked for their weak points; everything went very well. We knew that we had to focus on the boy from Singapore, varying between short and long, playing wide. We hope we can gain a place on the podium in the Boys’ Singles event. It will be tough but if we can find the rhythm we had in the team event then we have a good chance.” Martin Bentacor

“Very nice this, we knew we could but it would be a tough match because Yanapong is the strongest player in the tournament. It was necessary to win the doubles; we thought we could win the other two matches. It’s good that a South American Team won, it shows that here a good job is being done.” Santiago Lorenzo

In the counterpart semi-final, Dominic Song Jun and Yanapong Panagitgun had beaten Sweden’s Oskar Danielsson and Lee Larson by three matches to nil.

Success for Argentina, in the final of the Cadet Boys’ Team event, it was success for Peru; the duo comprising Carlos Fernandez and Joel Cisneros recorded a three-nil win over Costa Rica’s Joel Perez and Alfredo Sanchez in the final.