Men’s seeds all safely reach quarter-finals. Meakins reaches 14th straight ladies final and will face Mackenzie in repeat.
The top eight men all duly made their way into their respective quarter-finals as action continued at the Barbados Squash Club last night on the third evening of the 40th annual Barbados National Squash Championships. Top seed and defending champion, Gavin Cumberbatch easily dispatched the evergreen Leon Truss 11-7, 11-4, 11-7 and will now face former national champion and men’s captain, Andy Gill in tonight’s quarter-finals who also won in straight games over Brandon Straker 11-6, 12-10, 11-7. The #2 seed and six times former national champion Shawn Simpson also looked comfortable in a fast paced match against Ryan Foster who briefly threatened in the second game before the current national men’s captain prevailed 11-5, 11-9, 11-3. Simpson’s opponent in the quarter-finals will be the dangerous Mark Gilkes, who also looked relatively untroubled as he defeated another one of the exciting and talented national juniors, Shemane Griffith, who has made an impressive improvement over the past year. Gilkes led from start to finish and won in straight games 11-5, 11-6, 11-5. Two more Cumberbatch brothers advanced with Bryant Cumberbatch defeating Zaki Williams 11-8, 11-6, 11-7 while older brother Rhett Cumberbatch had to fight hard to defeat national U-19 champion, Stewart St. John in five hard fought games, 11-8, 10-12, 11-7, 5-11, 11-5. Rhett will now face former eight time national champion, Mark Sealy who defeated Copeland Straker 3-0 while Bryant will face Don Benn who defeated the fourth Cumberbatch brother to reach the last 16, Khamal Cumberbatch, the national U-13 and U-15 champion. Benn was pushed hard by the talented and diminutive 12-year old St. Michael’s student and dropped the first game before regrouping and closing out the next three games to win 3-11, 11-8, 11-9, 15-13.
Tonight’s ladies final will be a repeat of last year’s final as the top seed and 13-time national champion Karen Meakins was pushed by Nadia McCarthy but still won in straight games 11-3, 11-8, 11-6. The second ladies semi-final was a complete contrast as the #2 seed, Gylla Mackenzie, the reigning Barbados and Caribbean U-17 champion, fell behind 0-2 to the effervescent radio personality, Alex Jordan, who came back from 7-10 down in the first game and saved four game balls before winning at 13. Jordan then dominated the second game where she never trailed to win that game at four. Mackenzie upped the pace and stormed back to win at 1 and then 7. Jordan regrouped in the fifth game and seemed to be cruising to a big upset at 7-3 up before a combination of her errors and Mackenzie’s improved shot making made the difference. In the end Mackenzie won by three games to two 11-13, 4-11, 11-1, 11-7, 11-8 to reach her second successive ladies final. In other ladies matches played Amanda Haywood defeated Clair Husbands 3-0 to set up a fifth place match-up against Muffin Stollmeyer who also defeated the experienced Cilla Seale in straight games.
