Day 3 - Girls SF and Doubles QF / SF

 

9:00am Grace Thomas stepped on Court with Mariam Kamal (US) for the Semi-Finals of the individual competition.  Mariam is ranked 1 position below Chloe Chemtob in the US rankings and smashes the ball like no other girl in the tournament.  Grace did not start strong.  The first game maybe lasted 5 min in total.  With a little cheering Grace lengthened the rallies and started to work her opponent around the court.  The desired effect of taking the sting out of Mariam's shots, although Grace still lost the second game.  The damage done in the 2nd game worked as Grace was able to get back a game in the 3rd with some good dying length.  To no avail because Mariam, an experienced player, was not going to let it slip away and closed the match 3-1.  Grace will take home the Bronze medal in the 2016 Pan Am Jr. Squash Championships.  

10:00am Canada's Boys Doubles Team Brett Schille and Noel Heaton were up against the #1 seeded Mexican Team.  Boys doubles is fast and rough.  The players not hitting the ball are continually jostling for position of the centre of the court.  Canada would not win this match today, but they did learn a valuable lesson, by changing their strategy and playing front/back rather than sides they were able to neutralize their opponents. 

11:00am QF and 4:00pm SF:  Canada's Girls Doubles Team Grace Thomas and Hanna Blatt had two matches today.  The first match put them up against US Team.  This was the first real test of the girls ability to work the ball against the quick pace of the US Team.  It was a battle of getting used to the extra people on court and the slight change to the ruling of Lets and strokes.  The match came down to the very last possible point.  Both teams tied 1 game a piece and 10 ALL in the third, with the US Team fighting off 4 match balls.  The US served to Hanna and she blasted a cross court back at the server which died at the crack of the back wall.  Match Canada and a Semi-Final at 4:00pm with Team Columbia.

Amazingly, this match took less time than the Match against the US.  I think Hanna and Grace were more comfortable on the court and seemed to move the Columbian girls around more effectively.  This was a 20 minute SF and a birth in the final tomorrow with Mexico at 5:00pm

Tomorrow the boys start Round Robin play against Paraguay at 10:00am on court 6 (not live streamed)  

The girls will play Chile at 11:30am on the 26th of August

Cheers