Teenaged Barbadian squash sensation, Meagan Best, created history on Wednesday by becoming the youngest ever Caribbean senior squash champion on Day 3 of the 24th Caribbean Senior Squash Championships at the Queens Park Squash Complex in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. At a mere 14 years and 4 months old, Meagan Best, who was seeded at #3/4 this year, defeated the top seed and Barbados’ leading player for the last 15 years, Karen Meakins, who was the 3-time defending Caribbean ladies champion, in three hard fought games
The experienced Meakins had reached her record 10th successive Caribbean ladies final and Best was in her first, but the powerfully built teenager showed few signs of nerves and after taking a close first game at nine she even managed to recover from an accidental blow to the face in the second game, which required her to take an injury timeout. But after the application of some ice and then a plaster under her left eye she got back to work playing tight, powerful drives, attacking boasts and volleying at every opportunity. Meakins tried to slow the pace down somewhat but was never able to settle into her usual steady rhythm, and once Best clinched the second game which went to deuce, it was one way traffic in the third game, as Best finished off the match in imperious fashion with a flurry of winners to win 11-9, 12-10 11-5 in just short of 30 minutes. She has now become the youngest ever senior Caribbean champion, male or female, since these Championships were first held in 1977.
In other results involving Barbadian players, 16 year old Amanda Haywood, defeated Larissa Wiltshire (GUY) by three games to one 11-8, 11-5, 8-11, 11-6 to place fifth as she had done last year at the senior Championships held in the Cayman Islands. A pair of Barbadian teenagers, Jada Smith-Padmore (14) and Chelsie Samuel (13), met in the ladies consolation plate final with Jada emerging victorious in four games 11-7, 11-7, 6-11, 11-9. But in the men’s consolation plate final Barbadian Rhett Cumberbatch went down to the athletic Othniel Kevin Bailey (OECS – SVG) in four hard fought games, 11-8, 9-11, 14-16, 3-11.
(CA)
