Cuban tennis players start Pan American Championships with wins

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 4 (ACN) Six of the seven Cuban players in the Pan American Table Tennis Championship, in Santiago de Chile, won on Thursday in the start of the individual modality.

Eday Gómez beat Puerto Rican Oscar Birriel 4-3, Jorge Moisés Campos 4-0 over Barbadian Kevin Farley, and Liván Martínez 4-3 over Brazilian Guilherme Teodoro in the round of 64.

In the same instance Lizdainet Rodriguez lost 4-0 to Brazil's Giulia Takahashi and Idalys Lovet won 4-1 over Venezuela's Mariangel Diaz, according to the results tables on the official website of the ITTF (International Table Tennis Federation) Americas.

Karla Perez and Daniela Fonseca will go directly to the round of 32, where tomorrow they will compete against Puerto Rican Brianna Burgos and Brazilian Bruna Takahashi, respectively.

This Friday, in the round of 32, Gomez will face Mexico's Dario Arce, Campos will face Canada's Eugene Wang, Martinez will face Mexico's Marcos Madrid and Lovet will face Mexico's Clio Barcenas.

Of the Cubans, after the eliminations of the men's and women's teams at the start of the competition on Monday, and of the mixed and men's doubles on Wednesday, only Lovet and Fonseca, who will compete tomorrow in the quarterfinals of the women's doubles, remained on the road to the medals.