US juniors battle through Pan American Junior Circuit in Colombia

Eight American juniors, organized into four pairs, took the court at Padel House Galicia in Pereira, Colombia, for the Pan American Junior Circuit II from July 2-4, the second stop of USA Padel’s 2026 junior season. The trip gave the U.S. junior national team the kind of international repetitions that domestic play cannot match, with Lorena Rouillon Jimenez and Jaume (Tato) Rouillon Jimenez guiding the squad through a regional event built to expose young players to different pace, different ball patterns and different pressure.

For USA Padel, the Colombia stop carried more weight than a single tournament result. The federation says the junior program exists to identify, evaluate and select competition-level players while growing the sport nationwide, and this circuit is where that pipeline gets tested against the rest of the region. In Pereira, the Americans had to adjust to unfamiliar opponents and to the rhythm of a continental event, where pair communication and point construction matter as much as raw talent. That is the kind of setting that can speed up decision-making, especially for juniors learning how to reset after momentum swings and stay composed when matches turn messy.

The Colombia event also fit into a larger 2026 roadmap. USA Padel’s junior calendar points to the FIP Junior America Padel Cup in Mexico from Nov. 10-14 as the team’s ultimate target for the year, and that event will serve as the qualifier for the 2027 FIP Junior World Cup. Pereira was not a standalone trip. It was one rung on a structured ladder that runs from junior continental competition to the global stage, with each international stop adding another layer to the players’ development.

That ladder mirrors the rest of the American national-team setup. USA Padel says its senior national teams compete annually in FIP and Padel America championships, which makes the junior program the front end of the same selection system. The Colombia trip gave coaches another live look at how quickly players can absorb instructions, adapt their pair play and handle the pressure that comes with wearing USA colors overseas, with the lessons in Pereira feeding directly into the next evaluation cycle.