After the seedings were finalized last night (Thursday) for the individual competitions in the 16th biennial Caribbean Squash Championships in Jamaica the players representing the defending champions Barbados must have gone to sleep at the Liguanea Club in downtown Kingston, Jamaica quietly confident of doing very well once again this year.
In the Ladies draw five out of the top eight seeds are from Barbados and, for once, a Barbadian player is seeded at #1. In the absence of world #41 Nicolette Fernandes (Guyana), who is recovering from knee surgery, the seven time Barbados National Champion, Karen Meakins, is the top seed and must be a prohibitive favourite to claim the first Caribbean individual title for Barbados in the 30 year history of this event. Since moving to Barbados in 2000, Meakins, a tall, elegant right hander who is originally from England has only lost once in all competitions to anyone else in this year?s ladies field. Her chief rival, Karen Anderson, is appropriately seeded at #2 and hails from Jamaica and upset Meakins in the final of the 2005 Barbados Open. Meakins has beaten Anderson comfortably since then and will be looking yet again to avenge that blot on her copybook. After these top two ladies seeds the remainder of the top eight seeds are as follows: #3 – Rhea Khan (T&T); #4 ? Cheri-Ann Parris (B?dos); #5 ? Jenny Armstrong (B?dos); #6 ? Lilianna White (B?dos); #7 – Bo Harris (B?dos); #8 ? Sherian Slater (OECS ? St. Vincent).
In the Men’s draw Bermudians Patrick Foster (#1) and Nick Kyme (#2 – and currently ranked at #166 in the world) are seeded to reach the final on Monday 13th. The newly crowned Caribbean U-19 champion, Chris Binnie, and his Jamaican team mate, the redoubtable Wayne Burrowes are seeded next at # 3 and #4 respectively. Barbadians Shawn Simpson and Gavin Cumberbatch are next at #5 and #6, while Colin Ramasra (T&T) and Charlie Sonson (OECS ? St. Lucia) round out the top eight men. Whatever happens in the individuals it is more than likely that there will be brand new individual champions after the finals are held next Monday night, August 13th. Of the sixteen seeded players mentioned above, only the legendary Wayne Burrowes has won an individual title before and that success was an incredible 24 years ago in Bermuda in 1983!
Looking ahead to the team competitions that begin on Tuesday, August 14th the Men’s Team Championships seems to be quite evenly balanced with Bermuda, Jamaica, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago all with reasonable chances of winning the title this year. On the other hand, on paper the Barbados Ladies team has such strength in depth that a repeat of the ladies team?s successes in 2001 and 2005 seems highly probable. But the experienced Barbadian Management Team of the two captains (Mark Sealy and Sonia Perkins), the two coaches (Richard Walcott and Karen Meakins) and Manager, Orson Simpson, will be reminding their charges that squash is played on the court, not on paper. This is the time for all players to be focused. The prospects for the next ten days are mouth watering. Stay tuned!
Visit the Squash Site – a fabulous site with bags of info on the world of squash – to view the individual draws and follow these championships as they unfold at: http://www.squashsite.co.uk/caribbean_seniors.htm.
