(by Steve Hopkins)

The highest ranked juniors in the world have descended on Slovenia for the ITTF World Youth Championships.  TeamUSA has arrived in force to battle the world’s best.  The tournament began today with Team Events. Singles and Doubles will be played later in the week, with the Final matches scheduled for Sunday December 3.

In early action, TeamUSA’s U19 Boys team fell 0-3 to Germany (Nandan Naresh lost 2-3, Sid Naresh lost 1-3, and Daniel Tran fell 0-3).  TeamUSA’s U19 Girls team met a similar fate, falling 0-3 to Taipei (Sally Moyland lost 2-3, and Emily Tan and Tiffany Ke each fell 0-3).   The other TeamUSA squad was U15 Girls that also fell 0-3 to Taipei (with Yishiuan Lin, Amber Liu, and Amy Zhang a little overmatched by a higher ranked team).

There is a lot of action on the schedule later this week both for TeamUSA and Puerto Rico.  USA’s Nandan Naresh will face Japan’s Keishi Hagihara and Puerto Rico’s Angel Naranjo has drawn China’s Wn Ruibo in U19 Boys.  USA’s Sally Moyland will face Nicole Arlia of Italy in the first round of U19 Girls.  USA’s Stanley Hsu will face Wassim Essid in the U15 Boys draw and Puerto Rico has two in the event with Steven Moreno facing Friedrich Kuhn of Germany and Enrique Rios facing Japan’s Tamito Watanabe.  Yishiuan Lin and Amber Liu will both face off against tough opponents in the U15 Girls event with Yishiuan facing Taipei’s Peng Yu-Han and Amber facing Nicoleta Pascui of Hungary.

Lots of action will unfold later this week.

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