Young brigade through to last 16 in National Squash Championships
Action continued at the Barbados Squash Club last night on the second evening of action in the 40th annual National Squash Championships. The top four ladies seeds were all in action and they all won in straight games to move into the ladies semi-finals which will be played tonight (Wednesday). The top seed and 13-time national champion Karen Meakins defeated Muffin Stollmeyer 11-1, 11-2, 11-4 to reach her 14th straight national semi-final where she will face the promising #3/4 seed Nadia McCarthy who had to work hard to defeat National U-15 Champion, Amanda Haywood 11-5, 11-9, 15-13. The other ladies semi-final will be between the #2 seed, Gylla Mackenzie, the reigning Barbados and Caribbean U-17 champion who was too strong for the experienced Cilla Seale who was defeated 11-2, 11-0, 11-1. Mackenzie’s opponent in her semi-final match-up will be the other #3/4 seed Alex Jordan who won comfortably at 11-2, 11-2, 11-9 against the up and coming Clair Husbands.
In the Men’s Preliminary draw spectators saw the continuing emergence of the youth brigade with seven out of eight matches being claimed by players in their teens or early 20s. National Junior team members Stewart St. John, Brandon Straker and Shemane Griffith all prevailed with easy 3-0 victories over Cliff Nolan, Dean Straker and Julian Welch respectively. Brandon’s older brother, Copeland Straker, was too strong for Andrew Nunes, Ryan Foster also overcame Sylvester Nurse 3-0, while Zaki Williams defeated Deepu Panjwani all in straight games.
The match of the night was an entertaining and nail biting affair between the Caribbean U-13 and current national U-13 and U-15 champion, Khamal Cumberbatch, and the experienced former hockey national representative, Peter Harris who were evenly matched throughout. Cumberbatch dropped the first game at nine, then won the next at six, fell behind again after dropping the third at five but roared back again to tie things up at seven to take the match into a deciding fifth game. The tiring Harris and nervous Cumberbatch traded points and the game score was locked at 3-all, 4-all, 6-all, 7-all, 8-all, 9-all and then 10-all. In the tie break Harris had four chances to win but squandered them all before Cumberbatch duly clinched the match on his fourth match ball 9-11, 11-6, 5-11, 11-7, 18-16 in the longest match of the tournament thus far. Rounding out the eight players who have advanced to play against the top eight men’s seeds tonight was the evergreen Leon Truss who was successful against another junior national representative, Rithew Saywack in four close games 13-15, 11-7, 11-2, 12-10.
