MYERS SISTERS AT CASA 2016

The Maples Junior Caribbean Area Squash Championships (CASA) opened in Grand Cayman on Saturday, 16th July, 2016. Entered only in the three-day individual competition, Deiriai and Thandi Myers used the negative circumstances surrounding their participation as the wind beneath their wings and achieved their personal best results at the Championships.{{more}}

The sisters were not selected to participate in either the 2016 Junior OECS Championships held in the BVI in April or the team event at the Junior CASA Championships in the Cayman Islands.

Following their participation in the CASA Championship in 2015 Deiriai and Thandi had a two-week training stint with Barbadian coach Richard Walcott. This, together with them managing their personal training schedule here in St Vincent and the Grenadines and a further three-week stint with Walcott prior to their participation in the 2016 Junior CASA Championships have resulted in them having a very successful 2016 thus far. Deiriai and Thandi were not selected to participate in the 2016 Junior OECS Championships held in the BVI.

Deiriai placed fourth in the SVG 2016 Junior Open Competition and was 2nd in both Junior and Senior National Championships of 2016. In Grand Cayman she received a bye into the quarter-finals, which landed her in the path of number one seed Taylor Fernandes of Guyana. She went down 0-3, but came back fighting and triumphed over Tiye Williams of Bermuda in a nail biting 3-2 contest in the 5/8 play-off. She, however, had to settle for sixth place, as she went down to Faith Gillezeau of Trinidad and Tobago. Deiriai’s overall performance was, nevertheless, a fitting exit from Junior Caribbean Squash Championships.

Thandi, who represented St Vincent and the Grenadines at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa in August 2015, placed third in the SVG 2016 Junior Open Competition and is the current Junior and Senior National Champion. Thandi moved into the U19 category this year at the Junior CASA level and for the first time made the semi-finals by defeating both Ally Artuch of Grand Cayman 3-0, and Faith Gillezeau of Trinidad and Tobago 3-0. In the semi-finals, she was defeated by number two seed and eventual U19 champion Larissa Wiltshire of Guyana. In the 3/4 play-off she lost to Alyssa Mullings of Jamaica 0-3 and therefore finished in fourth place.

The Individual Championships ended on Monday, 18th July. The Team Competition started, on Tuesday, July 19, but due to executive manoeuvres gone awry, four junior female players from the OECS (including Deiriai and Thandi) were spectators to this event, despite the minimum requirement of three players to form a team. Junior CASA 2016 will end with a closing ceremony on Saturday, July 23.

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