by Ian Marshall, Editor

Success for Tsai Yu-Chin and Fang Sih-Han, the top seeds, in emphatic manner; they did not surrender a single individual match. In the counterpart group it was exactly the same for the second seeds, the Puerto Rican combination of Fabiola Diaz and Mylesha Sanchez, a day when matters went very much according to status.

Likewise in the Junior Boys’ Team competition, Canada’s Alexander Bu and Jeremy Hazin, the top seeds, secured first place in their group without dropping a single match as did the next in the order of merit Tai Ming-Wei and Kao Min-Chi.

However, the no.3 seeds, the El Salvador partnership of Oscar Villalta and Diego Orantes, as for the no.4 seeds, the Dominican Republic outfit comprising Pedro Cabrera and Rafael Cabrera, life was more exacting.

They remained unbeaten; thus secured first places but both were stretched the full five match distance.

Oscar Villalta and Diego Orantes found Guatemala’s Kevin Ruano and Leonel Barrios in form; Kevin Ruano being the player to cause problems. He beat both Oscar Villalta (11-9, 11-7, 11-9) and Diego Orantes (11-9, 11-8, 11-8). Hero of the hour for El Salvador was Oscar Villalta, in the vital fifth match of the fixture, he accounted for Leonel Barrios in tense five games encounter decided by the very narrowest of margins (11-7, 12-10, 4-11, 7-11, 11-9).

Similarly, there were nervous moments for Pedro Cabrera and Rafael Cabrera when facing Trinidad and Tobago’s Jessie Dookie and N’kosi Rouse; the thorn in the Dominican Republic side being Jesse Dookie. He overcame both Rafael Cabrera (11-8, 11-5, 13-15, 4-11, 11-7) and Pedro Cabrera (11-3, 8-11, 12-10, 4-11, 11-9).

Matters level thanks very much to the efforts of Jesse Dookie; in the crucial fifth match of the fixture, Rafael Cabrera overcame N’Kosi Rouse (11-7, 16-14, 11-6) to seal the victory.

Play in both the Junior Boys’ Team and Junior Girls’ Team events concludes on Thursday 16th August.