1964 Thomas Cup Pan American zone

In the first round, three nations had byes: the United States, Canada and Jamaica.

Thus, the national teams of Mexico and Japan faced each other on 22nd and 23 February 1964 at Mexico City. The Mexicans were optimistic because despite having a young team, their badminton players had some international experience and they had demonstrated that they could play badminton at a competitive level. On the other side, Japan had a strong team with some experienced players who had already competed in previous Thomas Cup tournaments. As a curiosity, the best players of both teams, Yoshio Komiya and Antonio Rangel were not national champions at the moment of the competition. Japan practically took control of the confrontation from the beginning to the end winning the 9 matches. Mexico just managed to win 3 sets; 2 of them by Antonio Rangel, and one more by Oscar Luján. Hence, the superiority and experience of Japan was more than evident and it was a presage of what was coming in the Pan American zone.

For the second round, Japan and Canada played for their right to get into the finals of the Pan American zone, while the United States confronted the other debutant team: Jamaica.

Japan had advanced into this round by defeating Mexico, while for Canada it was an opportunity to make it for the first time into the Inter zone round. Both teams clashed on 6 and 7 March 1964 at Vancouver, Canada. As with Mexico, Japan imposed its class to Canada and they defeated them by winning 8 matches and only losing one. The man for the Canadian team was Wayne Macdonell who won his match against Yoshio Komiya and extended to 3 sets his game against Takeshi Miyanaga. After its performance against Canada, there was no doubt, if any, that Japan was the team to be beaten in the zone.

In the other match, the reigning winner of the Pan American zone, the United States was facing the other new entrant to this competition: Jamaica. The games were held at Kingston, Jamaica, on 7 and 8 February 1964. The United States lined up many familiar faces such as JC Alston, Don Paup, Michael Hartgrove and Manny Armendariz; all badminton players with experience in past Thomas Cup tournaments. In a similar case as Mexico, despite being the first time that Jamaica was competing in the Thomas Cup, some of its players had shown that could play at a competitive level. Nevertheless, the superiority of the United States was unquestionable and they defeated Jamaica 9-0; indeed, Jamaica could not even win a set.

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