by Ian Marshall

A six day tournament, seven events – men’s team, women’s team, men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, mixed doubles – complete the itinerary in a competition for players born on or after Saturday 1st January 2000.

Canada’s Jeremy Hazin heads the men’s singles seeding ahead of Argentina’s Santiago Lorenzo, Chile’s Nicolas Burgos and Puerto Rico’s Angel Naranjo.

Meanwhile, in the counterpart women’s singles, Mexico’s Clio Barcenas occupies the top seeded spot. Ecuador’s Nathaly Paredes, Chile’s Valentina Rios and the Dominican Republic’s Esmerlyn Castro complete the top four names.

Notably the winners of the respective men’s singles and women’s singles events gain direct qualification to the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games.

Two players

In each of the men’s singles and women’s singles events a country is limited to two players; in the men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles it is one pair.

Mexico’s Dario Arce and Juan Jesus Gomez occupy the men’s doubles top spot followed by Peru’s Felipe Duffoo and Rodrigo Hidalgo.

Likewise in the women’s doubles and mixed doubles, Mexico is prominent. In the former Clio Barcenas and Arantxa Cossio reserve the no.2 spot behind Guatemala’s Lucia Cordero and Hidalynn Zapata; in the latter Dario Arce and Clio Barcenas head the order, next on the list being Ecuador’s Diego Piguave and Nathaly Paredes.

United States

Mexico prominent; in the team events, the United States is very much the nation to note.

Sid Naresh and Jayden Zhou occupy the no.2 spot on the men’s team listing behind Brazil’s Diogo Silva and Rafael Turrini; for the women, Sarah Jalli and Lin Yishiuan head the order. Puerto Rico’s Brianna Burgos and Fabiola Diaz reserve second place.

Seeding is based on the ITTF World Table Tennis Rankings, week no.47, published on Tuesday 23rd November.

Proceedings commence with the individual events; a total 36 men and 34 women compete.