Howard Ranger - national badminton coach - Anthony Minott

Despite not being guaranteed a place in the quarter-finals of the Ocean Spray Wata/Pan Am Junior Badminton Championships after experiencing mixed results on the opening day of the eight-day tournament being staged at the National Indoors Sports Centre, Jamaica's head coach Howard Ranger is already looking ahead.

Jamaica were blanked 5-0 by top seed United States of America in their opening match before bouncing back with a 3-2 win over Barbados in Group A action yesterday.

"We will progress to the quarter-finals, because it is the top two teams that go through," Ranger declared. "We are looking at now moving through to the next round where we will meet Canada or Peru.

"We will have to structure our team very carefully, but Jamaica has a little more depth," he added.

Jamaica now only need for the USA to not suffer a huge defeat to Barbados in one of three matches down to be contested during today's morning's session, which gets under way at 9. The other two matches will see Peru meeting Guatemala in Group B, while Canada tackle Puerto Rico in Group C. The quarter-final round will serve off at 3 p.m.

After losing to the USA, Jamaica had to get the better of Barbados to have any chance of progressing. They got off to a losing start as Mikaylia Holdane went down 21-18, 22-24, 17-21 to Monyata Riviera in their women's singles match.

Anthony McNee, who was the only Jamaican to win a singles match, pulled the team level, as he stopped Jevon Gaskin 21-8, 21-11.

Barbados regained the lead when the pair of Monyata Riviera and Mikeila Carrington triumphed 21-14, 21-19 over Katherine Wynter and Jade Clarke in the women's doubles.

Jamaica was able to pull level as the duo of McNee and Dennis Coke outclassed Gaskin and D'Andre Thorpe 21-3, 21-4 to win the men's doubles match.

In the final and decisive match, which was the mixed doubles, Holdane teamed up with Gerald Isaacs to defeat the Barbadian duo of Carrington and Sabeel Foster 21-10, 21-11 to the delight of the small gathering.

In Group B, Trinidad and Tobago were blanked 5-0 by second seed Peru. While in Group C third seed Canada clipped Brazil 3-2. Brazil bounced back to get by the group's other member, Puerto Rico 3-2.