The Guyanese quartet of Shemar Britton, Joel Alleyne, Chelsea Edghill and Natalie Cummings all failed to advance to the next round as the Latin America singles Olympic qualifying tournament commenced yesterday.
Playing in Rosario, Argentina the event functions as a qualifying tournament for the Tokyo Olympics with a total of eight Olympic berths at stake.
.In the men’s Singles round of 32, Britton showed his grit but lost 2-4 to Paraguay’s Alejandro Toranzos. Britton lost the opening match up 5-11 but bounced back to win the second set 11-8. He then surrendered the third set 2-11 and equalized with an 11-8 victory in the fourth set. However, the final two sets went to Toranzos 3-11 3-11.
Alleyne was no match for Chile’s Gustavo Gomez who strolled to a comfortable 4-0 win over the Guyanese. Gomez won the sets 11-6, 11-5, 11-8 and 11-2.
In the women’s singles round of 32, Edghill bounced back from losing the two opening sets 5-11 and 8-11 to Mexico’s Monica Munoz with 11-9 and 11-4 victories.
Munoz then recorded an 11-6 win in the fifth set but Edghill responded with an 11-8 win to bring the score 3-3. In the final set, the duo went the distance in the 45-minute match but in the end Munoz won 11-9 after the score was knotted 9-9 in the deciding fifth set.
Like Alleyne, Cummings suffered a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Guatemala’s Lucia Cordero as she went down, 9-11, 6-11, 7-11 and 8-11.
In the women’s round of 16 today top seed Melanie Diaz of Puerto Rico, who drew a first round bye, will oppose Esmerlyn Castro of the Dominican Republic while Paraguay’s Lucero Ovelar, who defeated Trinidad’s Rheann Chung 4-1, will face Guatemala’s Mabelyn Enriquez.
Mexico’s Munoz will face Candela Molero of Argentina and Chile’s Daniela Ortega will face Cuba’s Daniela Carrazana Fonseca in the top half of the draw.
The bottom half of the draw will see home girl Camila Arguelless waiting on the winner between Mexico’s Yadira Silva and Ecuador’s Nathaly Paredes for a spot in the last eight.
The remaining two round of 16 clashes will pit Dominican Republic’s Eva Brito against Colombia’s Paulina Medina and Chile’s Paulina Vega taking on Guatemala’s Cordero.
The men’s singles has reached the last eight and will see Cuba’s Jorge Campos taking on Argentina’s Gaston Alto, Puerto Rico’s Brian Afanador against Mexico’s Marcos Madrid, Alberto Mino of Ecuador against Jiaji Wu of the Dominican Republic and Chile’s Juan Lamadrid against Argentina’s Horacio Cifuentes.
In the round of 16 Campos defeated Paraguay’s Marcelo Aguirre 4-0; Alto defeated the Dominican Republic’s Emil Santos 4-1; Afanador stopped Chile’s Gustavo Gomez 4-2; Madrid whipped Colombia’s Alexander Echavarria 4-0; Mino defeated Jamaica’s Simon Tomlinson 4-1; Wu got the better of Puerto Rico’s Daniel Gonzalez 4-1; Lamadrid eliminated Alejandro Toranzos of Paraguay 4-2 and Cifuentes whipped Cuba’s Andy Pereira 4-0.
