Puerto Rican table tennis player Adriana Díaz won her seventh title at the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) Pan American Championship on Sunday in Lima, Peru. At the Polideportivo 3 de Videna, the Utuado native beat Canadian-Chinese Mo Zhan, 37, by 4-2 for her seventh continental championship in the last nine editions. Díaz, who turns 26 on October 31, took gold for the third consecutive tournament; no one else has that many individual titles in the competition’s history.
Her father and coach, Bladimir Díaz, told El Nuevo Día by text that opponents from the continent are never easy to beat because of the pressure and ranking points at stake for a defending champion. Díaz entered as top seed and two-time defending champion. After a bye in the round of 64, she beat Olivia Wang 4-1, Mexico’s Arantxa Cossio 4-1, and Brazil’s Victoria Strassburger (seeded 13th) 4-0, then Lily Zhang, third seed in the Americas, 4-2 in the semifinals.
In the final she lost the first set 11-4, then won three straight (11-9, 11-4, 11-5). Zhan took the fifth set 11-7, but Díaz led 7-0 in the sixth. Díaz ranks 20th in the world and improved to 8-4 against Zhan.
Her father said she leaves Sunday night for France to play in the Champions event, followed by Frankfurt.