BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) – Over 100 players from seven countries will gather this weekend for the 18th Caribbean Squash Championships scheduled for St Vincent and the Grenadines. Defending team champions Trinidad and Tobago will head the slate of teams which also includes Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Guyana, Jamaica and the OECS.
Keen competition is expected in this phase of the August 15-22 tournament with the Trinidadians looking to make a sterling defence of their titles.
In the men’s, they will face competition from most of the other teams especially the OECS who have in their ranks World No.10 Joe Kneipp, an Australian who now resides in the British Virgin Islands.
In the women’s draw, T&T will be eyeing perennial champions Barbados closely in their attempt to repeat as champions.
The individual tournament will have to do without women’s defending champion Nicolette Fernandes of Guyana who has other playing commitments.
Her absence was confirmed on Monday by Guyana Squash Association president, Andrew Arjoon.
This development leaves Barbadians Karen Meakins and Cheri-Ann Parris as the heavy favourites to take the title, with an all-Barbados final now widely expected.
Meakins won silver at the recently staged Central American and Caribbean Games in Bogota and has been the losing finalist at the last three tournaments.
Parris, meanwhile, will be a handful especially after an outstanding season at Bates College in the United States where she was voted New England Small College Athletic Conference (NESCAC) Rookie-of-the-Year.
The men’s campaign will see Jamaican Chris Binnie attempting to defend his title but the return of Guyana’s Richard Chin will bring an interesting twist to the championship race.
A six-time junior champion during the 1980s, Chin has plied his trade in the United States in recent years and will expect to be a major stumbling block for Binnie.