Bridgetown Barbados is seeing squash lovely squash at its best on display.
Girls’ U-13 top-seed Mary Jo Mahfood of Jamaica booked her semi-final spot by defeating Demi Ollivierre of the OECS 11-5, 11-2, 11-3, at the POWERADE Caribbean Junior Caribbean Squash Championships on Saturday.
Meanwhile, among the Under-13 Boys, T&T’s Nku Patrick and Jamaican Jake Mahfood stayed on course for a repeat of last year’s Boys Under-13 final in Bermuda.
All the top-seeded players safely made it through early rounds of the championships on Saturday.
Under-19 No 1 seeds Kerrie Sample, of Trinidad and Tobago, and Joe Chapman, of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), breezed through their matches on opening day at the Barbados Squash Club.
England-based Sample dismissed Bermuda’s Juliette Ferrari-McComb 11-1, 11-1, 11-3 in her U-19 outing while the No 2 seed and ex-champion Cheri-Ann Parris brushed aside T&T’s Jessica Scott 11-3, 11-4, 11-3.
In the Boys’ U-19 class, the British Virgin Islands’ Chapman outgunned Jamaican David Lawrence 11-1, 11-8, 11-4, and Cayman’s Cameron Stafford, last year’s U-17 champion, debuted in the higher age-group with an 11-1, 11-4, 11-1 triumph over Ryan Foster, of Barbados.
Guyanese Keisha Jeffrey and Ashley Khalil, the top seeds in the Girls’ U-17 division, won quarter-final matches in the evening session.
The No 1 seed and defending champion Jeffrey eliminated Jamaican Lauren Mahfood 11-2, 11-9, 11-6 and Khalil defeated Emily Bones, of T&T, 11-5, 11-6, 8-11, 11-8.
The Boys’ Under-17s reached the second-round stage where top-seed Alex Arjoon, a former champion in the lower age-group, defeated Cayman’s Alex Frazer 11-7, 11-7, 11-6.
Among the Under-15s, defending champion Victoria Arjoon and T&T’s Mandela Patrick advanced.
Arjoon beat Barbadian Asha Gibbs 11-4, 11-9, 11-2 to reach the Girls’ semis along with Jamaican Jessica Perkins, a straight games winner over T&T’s Charlotte Knaggs, and Patrick topped Cody Stafford 11-4, 11-5, 11-8 to reach the Boys’ quarter-finals.
Top-seed Patrick toppled fellow Trinidadian Christian Edghill 11-4, 11-1, 11-4 to reach the semi-finals and Mahfood is also into the last four after defeating Jason Doyle, of the OECS, 11-8, 11-6, 11-9.
