Third seed Ygor Coelho suffered a surprise loss to BR Sankeerth in the quarterfinals of the XXIV Pan Am Championships 2021 in Guatemala yesterday.
Coelho, who had won their three previous matches, couldn’t offer much of a fight as he went down 21-12 21-12. The Brazilian had been pushed hard in his quarterfinal earlier in the day by Mexico’s Job Castillo, 24-22 19-21 21-18.
There were no surprises elsewhere in the draw, with top seed Jason Anthony Ho-Shue, second seed Brian Yang, and fourth seed Kevin Cordon taking their semifinal places. Yang beat El Salvador’s Manuel Mejia 21-5 21-6 and will face Canadian compatriot Sankeerth next.
In women’s singles, top seed Beiwen Zhang dismissed Mexico’s Vanessa Karmine Villalobos Vazquez to make the semifinals against Canada’s Talia Ng, while second seed Iris Wang of USA takes on Canada’s Rachel Chan.
Ho-Shue also made the semifinals in men’s doubles as he and Nyl Yakura overcame Peru’s Jose Guevara/Diego Mini 21-13 21-15.
In mixed doubles, third seeds Solis Jonathan/Diana Corleto Soto of Guatemala overcame stiff resistance from USA’s Sri Kolla/Bhaavya S Manikonda in the second game to prevail 21-10 25-23 and earn a shot against top seeds Joshua Hurlburt-Yu/Josephine Wu in the last four.
The Pan Am Championships are among the last qualifying events for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.