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Squash Association applauds team results
Nicolette Fernandes
Brendon Mounter
The Guyana Squash Association is of the view that the final results for the overall team championships and the Men, Women and Veterans in the just concluded Caribbean Championships show a reasonable performance for the young Guyana team.
In a release, the GSA stated, the Men’s team of Kristian Jeffrey, Regan Pollard, Alexander Arjoon, Oliver Downes and Raphael DeGroot of which Arjoon, Downes and DeGroot are all Junior players who played above expectations winning important matches against superior opposition.
For Pollard it was an excellent return to regional competition after a long hiatus. He looks forward to remaining active and sharing his experience with younger teammates.
For Jeffrey, playing at No. 1 was a fiery baptism as he himself was until 2 years ago an Under-19 player. Arjoon, Downes and DeGroot each used the opportunity to gain a measure of the level of senior competition.
For Downes it was his only regional tournament of the year having missed out Juniors in Barbados in July and Arjoon exacted revenge on the U-17 Caribbean Champion Micah Franklin of Bermuda who like Arjoon, played at No. 4 for his team.
The Women were led by Nicolette Fernandes who won the individual Women’s Title easily dispatching all comers and finally the No. 2 seed, Karen Meakins of Barbados.
Meakins lost two matches to Fernandes during the tournament, but won perhaps the most important match in the 3rd and 4th place playoff on the final day in the team competition. Again Guyana suffered without a 5th woman. Junior players, Keisha and Kayla Jeffrey and Victoria Arjoon had an incredible tournament playing older and stronger players and holding their own, and in several instances, winning critical team and individual matches against higher ranked players.
Veterans – Alwyn Callender, Brendon Mounter and Chauncey Lee – had their work cut out for them in team competition. Playing two players short they began each team encounter down 2 matches needing to win all three to win any tie. The UK based Mounter overcame stiff competition to win three of his four matches and take the Veteran Men’s O-40 Caribbean title. This victory was especially sweet for Mounter as he suffered a severe calf injury just two weeks before the tournament and his place had looked doubtful.
The Guyana team returned home last Sunday.
The Guyana Squash Association expressed thanks to their sponsors – Ansa McAl, GT&T, Bounty Farm, John Fernandes and the National Sports Commission/Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport who provided important sponsorship especially for our Junior Players – Oliver Downes, Alexander Arjoon, Raphael DeGroot, Keisha Jeffrey, Kayla Jeffrey and Victoria Arjoon.
Meanwhile, the release informed that President of the Guyana Squash Association Ronald Burch-Smith represented Guyana at the Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Annual General Meeting held in the Cayman Islands last Saturday, August 23.
The governing body has invited Guyana to bid to host the 2010 Senior Caribbean Championships and the 2011 Junior tournament. It is expected that the new squash facilities being constructed by the Government of Guyana will be ready by the first quarter of next year and will be a co-facility for these tournaments.
The Guyana Squash Association also plans to expand it tournament schedule to include at least two Veterans only tournaments so that it can be
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