This article was published by the Nation Newspaper.
Barbados’ premier squash tournament has its eye on becoming one of the world’s best.
Long-serving Barbados Squash Association president Craig Archer believes that with adequate financial backing the Barbados Open could attract the sport’s top players from as early as next year.
Archer made the comments ahead of today’s start of the tournament in the presence of the visiting Malaysia’s women’s World No.1 Nicol David at the Barbados Squash Club.
“It really depends on funding because you’ll need something in the vicinity of $20 000 in prize money to attract some of the top players,” reasoned Archer.
“If there’s reasonable prize money players will love to come because the Caribbean is a wonderful tourist destination. We need corporate Barbados, the BTA, the Sports Council, the BOA to say ‘yes, we’re committed to this amount of prize money’.
“[And] hopefully with the arrival of Nicol this year and the interest that we’ve received from the Barbados Tourism Authority, as soon as next year we might be able to have a WISPA [Women’s International Squash Players Association] event here.”
The country’s premier tournament, the Barbados Open is expected to draw about 50 competitors from the United States, Cayman Islands, and St Vincent and the Grenadines to do battle in the men’s A and B events as well as the ladies’ draw.
Four of the top eight men in the Caribbean – including regional No.1 Richard Chin of Guyana – are also slated to compete in the week-long tournament against the likes of local Caribbean queen Karen Meakins and top-ranked Bajan male Shawn Simpson.
David is due to leave Barbados today after her three-day visit as part of a Caribbean tour.
The 27-year-old top-ranked player conducted clinics for junior players and appeared in a couple of exhibition single matches against Meakins and Simpson.
