Team USA earned six medals at the 2026 Pan American Championships–including Women’s Team and Amanda Sobhy’s Individual Gold–following seven days of competition, August 15-22, in Asunción, Paraguay.
Team USA returns stateside with the Women’s Team Gold, Men’s Team Bronze, Women’s Individual Gold and Silver, and Women’s and Mixed Doubles Silver medals.
Team U.S. Women’s Team featured world No. 10 Amanda Sobhy, world No. 14 Marina Stefanoni, Harvard No. 1 Caroline Fouts and Princeton No. 1 Alex Jaffe. The U.S. Men’s Team featured world No. 27 Timmy Brownell, world No. 81 Nick Spizzirri, world No. 82 Shahjahan Khan and U.S. Champion Dillon Huang.
The Pan American Championships featured Individual, Doubles and Team competitions with seven gold medals on offer.
The individual competition opened proceedings with three Americans in each draw. Amanda Sobhy and Marina Stefanoni opposed each other in as the top two seeds in the women’s draw and set up an All-American final without dropping a game on their path to the final. Sobhy clinched the gold medal against her teammate in a four-game final 11-7, 1-11, 11-5, 11-9 in forty minutes. Both Timmy Brownell and Caroline Fouts reached the individual quarterfinals.
The doubles competition followed with Americans team in the women’s, men’s and mixed draws. Fouts & Alex Jaffe put together a surprise run to the women’s final as a 5/8 seed. The Americans defeated Chile and Brazil on their way to the final where they lost out against Colombia and earned silver medals. Brownell & Stefanoni teamed up in the mixed draw as the two seeds and reached the final without dropping a game. The U.S. pair lost against Colombia in the final to earn silver medals.
The tournament culminated in the team competition with the U.S. Women seeded first and U.S. Men seeded 3/4. The U.S. Women put together a perfect title run without dropping an individual match with Sobhy and Stefanoni leading the gold medal charge with 2-0 wins in the semifinals against Mexico and finals against Canada.
The U.S. Men would fulfill their seedings with a quarterfinal win over Canada courtesy of Nick Spizzirri in the No. 2 match and Shahjahan Khan in the No. 3 match, sealing a bronze medal. Their tournament came to an end in the semifinals against top-seeded Mexico who reached the final with a 2-0 win.
Stefanoni went on to win the most medals of any American, including two silver medals in the individual and doubles competitions and gold in the team competition. Stafanoni was also recognized with the women’s Sportsmanship Award for her demeanor on and off court.
Team USA’s performance confirms qualification for the 2027 Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, next summer. The 2027 Pan Am Games men’s and women’s individual gold medalists will be the first players from the Americas to qualify for the LA28 Olympic Games.
“The Pan Ams are always a grueling tournament with a packed competition schedule against top opponents, and we were proud of Team USA meeting the challenge and performing at a high level this week,” said Nick Taylor, the Ganek Family US Squash Head National Coach. “This was the first step in Team USA’s road to the LA28 Olympic Games and the experience will help set the team up well to compete at their highest potential at the 2027 Pan Am Games next summer.”
The U.S. coaching staff included Nick Taylor, Pan Ams and PSA veteran Chris Gordon and Physio Laurence Leonard. National team focus now shifts to the biennial World Team Championships in Korea this December.
“I would like to thank the players’ personal squash coaching teams for all the hard work they put in behind the scenes, work that can sometimes go unnoticed but is so important to the players’ success,” Taylor said. “I also want to recognize our new Team USA coaching staff: Chris Gordon and Damon Leedale-Brown, who bring incredible experience at the highest level of the game, along with Julian Illingworth, our eight-time nation champion and highest ranked men’s player ever, who will be joining us for the World Team championships in Korea this December. A huge thank you to our Team USA physio, Laurence Leonard, who works tirelessly to keep our players healthy, prepared and performing at their best throughout these events.”
For more tournament coverage visit panamsquash.com.
