Vincies hold their own in Caribbean squash Circuit

Four young Vincentians recently competed in two legs of the competitive Caribbean Squash Circuit (the 3rd leg being the Ligueanea Open in Jamaica) and emerged with two 3rd place finishes over the 2-week period.{{more}}

In the St. Lucia Open, from June 30-July 5, Shane Slater, Kevin Bailey, Bradley Glasgow and Amber Glasgow faced opponents from Barbados, Guadeloupe, Guyana, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Martinique.

In the 16-man Men’s Open, Slater and Bailey finished in 2nd place in their round-robin boxes to advance to the quarter-finals. In Box 1, Slater accounted for Thierry Verson (Martinique) 9/2, 9/0, 9/0 and Randolph Khan (St. Lucia) 9/2, 9/1, 9/0 before falling to #1 seed Josh Pinard (Trinidad) 6/9, 3/9, 0/9. In Box 4, Bailey similarly defeated St. Lucians Peter Byrne and David Piper in straight games before falling 2/9, 0/9, 2/9 to #4 seed Jocelyn Martin. Meanwhile, in Box 2, Bradley Glasgow fell to #2 seed Kristian Jeffrey and Guadeloupe’s Pierric Girou in straight games before triumphing in a 9/7, 3/9, 9/1, 3/9, 9/3 battle with St. Lucia’s Chris Gardiner to take 3rd to advance to the plate competition (positions 9-16).

In the quarter-final stage, Bailey also fell victim to eventual champion Jeffrey, going down 2/9, 1/9, 2/9, while Slater fell short in a 7/9, 6/9, 6/9 loss to #3 seed Charlie Sonson (St. Lucia). In the 5th-8th place play-offs, Slater followed up a 9/7, 9/2, 9/3 win over Bailey with a 9/2, 9/2, 9/7 victory over Girou for 5th place, while Bailey finished in 7th after a walkover against Steven Miller (Barbados).

In the plate competition, Glasgow finished in 12th overall, after beating Byrne 3-0 in the first round and losing a pair of 1-3 matches to St. Lucians Randolph Khan and Dominique Rivers.

On the distaff side, Bradley’s sister Amber finished in 3rd place in the Women’s Open after straight-game losses to Nicolette Fernandes (Guyana) and Karen Meakins (Barbados). A week earlier, Bailey had also copped a 3rd place finish in the Men’s B division of the Barbados Open (June 23-28), repeating his performance in the 2007 event.

The quartet (who have only recently completed their junior careers) hope to use the experience gained to improve their performance in future senior tournaments.