Local squash queen and ten time Barbados National Squash Champion, Karen Meakins, has continued her recent run of good form and has reached the quarter-finals of the 10th World Squash Federation’s World Masters Championships being held from August 23rd to 28th in Cologne, Germany.
Meakins, who now has the results to prove that she is one of the best athletes to have ever represented Barbados in any sport, recently won a silver medal for Barbados in the Ladies Individuals and a bronze medal in the Ladies team event at the 21st Central American and Caribbean (CAC) Games in Bogota, Colombia last month and only last week claimed Barbados’ first ever gold medal in the Ladies Individuals at the 2010 Caribbean Squash Championships in St. Vincent and played unbeaten in the team event to anchor Barbados to a gold medal performance in the Ladies team event also. She has now set her sights on an outstanding performance in her first ever World Masters event and continued her winning ways today in the round of 16 in the Ladies Over-35 age group. Meakins defeated another unseeded opponent, Henrieta Loksova, from Slovakia 11-4, 11-9 12-10 and advanced to the quarter-finals tomorrow morning (Thursday), Barbados time where she will face another unseeded opponent, Iris Stockbauer from Germany, who upset the #3 seed Peta Jan Murphy, from Australia, in five close games.
Karen commenting about her own match noted that it was ‘a decent match. [My opponent] was a nice player. I made a few more mistakes than I would have liked, but I’m happy to get through!’ ‘Tomorrow will be a very hard match’ she added, ‘the German lady will obviously have lots of home support so I’ll just have to be at my best and see how it goes.’
In all there are over 800 competitors in these biennial WSF World Masters Championships with competition for both men and ladies in the over 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70 age groups and for the men only in the over 75 category. There were 28 entries in the Ladies over-35 age group which is now down to the last eight. The Ladies +35 top seed is Germany’s former multiple national champion and World #6, Sabine Schoene, who is making her first appearance in this age group.
