C’bean junior, senior squash champion wins Canadian title

Meagan Best, the reigning two time Barbados and Caribbean Girls Under-15 squash champion, has sensationally won the GU-15 title at the prestigious 2016 Canadian Junior Squash Open, being held from December 10-13th, inclusive at the White Oaks Club, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada.

After finishing in seventh place in December last year in the same age group, Best has shown phenomenal improvement in 2016, retaining her local and Caribbean junior titles, as well as becoming the youngest ever winner of both the Barbados and Caribbean senior individual squash titles.

In Canada, the powerfully built Best was seeded at #2, and swept through her side of the GU-15 draw like a hot knife through butter and had dropped only one game in her first four matches to reach the final. She won her GU-15 semi-final Monday against Canadian Sarah Cao in straight games 11-4, 11-7, 11-4, and in the GU-15 final held earlier yesterday morning, she faced another Canadian, Lucia Bicknell, the #3/4 seed, who upset the top seeded American, Lucie Stefanon in three straight games yesterday.

Best would have been confident going into this last encounter, however, as she had defeated Bicknell 3-0 in these championships last year on her way to finishing in 7th place, and so it proved. Best was in complete control throughout and won easily, cruising past Bicknell in three straight games 11-4, 11-2, 11-1, to claim the first Canadian junior title ever by a Barbadian player at the age of 14 years and 7 months!

A total of 283 athletes from 21 different countries, including a total of 12 junior players from Barbados, have been competing over the past four days in the U-13, -15, -17 and -19 age groups, and also playing on the final day will be Barbadians Amanda Haywood and Chelsie Samuel, in the GU-17 and GU-15 age groups respectively.

Haywood is the reigning two time Caribbean U-17 champion, but was only seeded in the #9/12 bracket in the Canadian Open this year, but did well to improve on her seeding to reach the last eight, before losing twice on Monday to higher seeded opponents – first going down 0-3 to the #3/4 seed Amita Gondi (USA), and then falling 2-3 to Mariam Mansoor (CAN) in a closely fought encounter. Later on yesterday, Haywood was to take on another Canadian #5/8 seed, Charlotte Orcutt, to determine 7th place.

13-year-old  Chelsie Samuel, also had a two wins and two losses record at the Canadian Junior Open this year, but after defeating compatriot Jodi Smith-Padmore on Monday 14-12, 11-7, 11-5 in a closely contested match, Samuel faced Guatemala’s Maria Fernanda Pinot in the final of the GU-15 Bronze competition earlier yesterday to win in four games 11-8, 11-6, 11-13, 11-2 to move to a three and two win loss record, and bring more joy to the touring Barbadian contingent of players and parents.

In addition to the four above mentioned Barbadians, eight other local juniors took part in this year’s event in Canada, with Darien Benn, Aidan Parris and Alex Stewart competing in the BU-13 age group; with Sumairaa Suleman (GU-13); Kemar Lord (BU-15); Jada Smith-Padmore (GU-15); Chemar Burnham (BU-17) and Zachary Proverbs-Harris (BU-19) all gaining valuable experience from the higher level of competition. Most of these players will move on this week to play in the US Junior Squash Open.