The leading outfits in both the Junior Boys' and Cadet Boys' Team events at the Scotiabank Junior and Cadet Open in Markham, emerged successful on the opening day, Tuesday October 2, 2012.
In the city situated in the Greater Toronto area, top seeds, Chinese Taipei represented by Lee Chia-Sheng and Liao Cheng-Ting stamped their authority on proceedings. They remained unbeaten in the first phase of proceedings in the Junior Boys' Team event as did Canada 1, the second seeds, with Chen Hongtao and James Pintea on duty.
Both teams duly completed their group stage matches in first place and thus progressed to the main draw.
Convincing Wins
Lee Chia-Sheng and Liao Cheng-Ting recorded three-nil wins over Canada 4 (Antoine Bernadet, Jeremy Lau) and Canada 2 (Vincent Rousseau-Emond, Max Xia); the latter duo secured second place in the group and thus alongside the Chinese Taipei pairing progressed to the semi-finals.
Second Seeds Tested
Similarly, in the corresponding group, there were few problems for Chen Hongtao and James Pintea; the one team to pose questions being the Canada 3 duo of Marko Medjugorac and Mathieu Theriault with the former the one player to blemish an otherwise perfect day.
In the opening match of the fixture, he accounted for James Pintea (13-11, 2-11, 12-10, 9-11, 11-6) to give his team the early advantage.
Furthermore, they nearly doubled the lead, Chen Hongtao needed the full five games to beat Mathieu Theriault (12-10, 8-11, 12-14, 11-5, 11-4).
Settled Nerves
The success recorded by Chen Hongtao leveled matters and appeared to settle nerves; Chen Hongtao and James Pintea beat Mako Medjugorac and Mathieu Theriault in three straight games to secure the doubles (11-9, 11-3, 11-8) with James Pintea concluding matters by overcoming Mathieu Theriault in four games (8-11, 11-6, 11-8, 11-9).
Second Place for Argentina
A hard fought contest against Canada 4, the duo of Cheng Hongtao and James Pintea duly secured first place in their group with three-nil wins over Korea's Park Sangmin and Kang Minho followed by a similar success in opposition to Argentina's Juan Daher and Pablo Saragovi.
The Argentine duo duly finished proceedings in second place by recording a three-one win over Korea and a three-nil victory against Canada 3; the one success for the Koreans came from Kang Minho, he beat Pablo Saragovi in the second match of the contest (12-10, 10-12, 11-2, 8-11, 11-7).
However, wins for Juan Daher against Park Sangmin (11-6, 11-8, 11-7) and Kang Minho (12-10, 6-11. 14-12, 4-11, 11-5) and in the doubles with Juan Daher and Pablo Saragovi combining to overcome Hong Kyeongki and Park Sangmin (9-11, 13-11, 11-8, 11-8) secured victory.
Top Places for Top Three
Meanwhile, in the Cadet Boys' Team event where three groups comprise the first stage of proceedings; each of the leading teams will compete their group matches on the second day of play.
On the first day of action, Hong Kong (Chu Hoi Mn, Kung Ka Tak) posted a three-nil win over Canada 3 (Alexander Bu, James Yu); the United States (Kunal Chodri, Theodore Tran, Howard Tong) performed likewise against Canada 2 (Felix Dumolin, Michael Luo), while ITTF-North America emulated the top two seeded outfits.
Two Matches Completed
Formed by the Canadians Filip Ilijevski and Alexander Moran; they accounted for Barbados (Tyrese Knight, Stephen Payne) by three matches to nil, before continuing their good form to record the same victory margin in opposition to Canada 4 (Matthew Lehman, Austin Lin).
