American and Canadian shuttlers made light work of their opening round opponents to make a perfect start to the Pan Am Individual Championships in El Salvador on Tuesday.
The two top nations’ players won all their matches in straight games bar two – Canadian mixed pair Dong Adam /Eliana Zhang and men’s pair Vinson Chiu/Joshua Yang of Team USA dropping one each to Brazilians Matheus Voigt/Tamires Santos and Jonathan Matias/Davi Silva respectively.
Canada, with their seven athletes led by the seasoned five-time champion Nyl Yakura, completed all their straight-games victories under 35 minutes. Men’s pair Kevin Lee and Ty Alexander Lindeman were on court for only 17 minutes in their 21-6 21-9 win over Guyana’s Akili Haynes/Tyrese Jeffrey.
Team USA’s Howard Shu had a shorter match, seeing off his Colombian men’s singles challenger Enrique Rodriguez 21-1 21-7 in just 15 minutes.
Day 2 of the championships will see the big guns – top seeds Brian Yang (men’s singles) and Michelle Li (women’s singles) of Canada – open their campaigns.
Yang is the defending champion while Li is a four-time (2013, 2014, 2018, 2019) gold medallist at the competition.
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