Juan Carlos Lazo upsetted Nicholas Naraine when action in the much anticipated, Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company (G T & T) sponsored National Senior Squash Championships served off on Tuesday evening at the Georgetown Club courts.
For the first time the Guyana Squash Association (GSA) has allowed a woman to compete in the men’s division at the national championships.
Guyana’s world renowned squash star Nicolette Fernandes has been allowed to compete in both the men and ladies’ opens, with the understanding that her results in the men’s draw will not be recognized in the final placing. This was done to give Fernandes much needed, tournament practice in preparation for her return to the international circuit.
Although most of the top seeds received byes into the second round, Tuesday night’s action still produced high quality, entertaining squash for those gathered with the most dramatic match of the evening involving Juan Carlos Lazo and the promising junior player Nicholas Naraine.
After fighting hard to tie the match up at two games all, Lazo seemed completely spent early in the fifth game when Naraine got out to a 7-2 lead, but Lazo slowly but surely found his second wind to claw his way back into the game and even fought off two match points before upsetting his higher ranked opponent 10/9 in the fifth.
The other dramatic match of the evening featured former five-time junior Caribbean champion Kristina King and the talented junior national player Mary Fung-A-Fat.
King, who is on her summer break from attending university overseas, showed glimpses of her brilliance when she raced out to a 2-0 lead in no time and reached match ball at 8-3 in the third. It was at this point when the match experienced a complete turn around as Fung-A-Fat took back the serve and went from 3-8 down to 10-8 without losing the serve again.
As the match moved into the latter stages Fung-A-Fat just kept getting stronger and stronger while King faded badly which could have been caused by her inactivity over the past year and Fung-A-Fat completed the remarkable comeback by taking the last two games 9/5 and 9/0.
King’s older sister Andrea also had a tough time of it against reigning under 13 Caribbean champion Victoria Arjoon, with Arjoon coming from one game down to prevail in four. The most entertaining match of the night however took place between, multi talented athlete and Stabroek News reporter, Kiev Chesney and national junior player Deje Dias. Although a number of the rallies were very entertaining and Chesney showed good ball sense, Dias was in no mood to be generous as he allowed the reporter only two serves on his way to the 9/0 9/0 9/0 win.
The men’s quarterfinal is scheduled for Thursday while the finals of both categories are scheduled for Saturday evening.
Men’s Open
Deje Dias defeated Kiev Chesney 9/0 9/0 9/0
Jason Ray Khalil defeated Jean-Claude Jeffrey 9/7 9/1 9/0
Juan Carlos Lazo defeated Nicholas Narain 1/9 9/2 8/10 9/6 10/9
Allan Downes defeated Lee Fung-A-Fat 9/1 9/2 9/0
Peter deGroot defeated Javier Grau 9/2 9/3 9/0
Jerozeno Bell defeated Nyron Joseph 9/2 9/3 9/0
Damian Fernandes defeated Abhishek Singh 10/8 9/7 9/0
Raphael degroot defeated Stefan Jeffrey 9/0 9/1 9/1
Joe Mekdeci defeated Ingram Edwards 9/2 7/9 9/4 10/8
Alexander arjoon defeated Jason Van Dyk 9/0 9/0 9/0
Luca Palazzotto received a walkover from Alex Gouveia
Ladies’ Open
Tiffany Solomon defeated Lydia Fraser 9/5 9/2 9/0
Mary Fung-A-Fat defeated Kristina King 5/9 6/9 10/8 9/5 9/0
Victoria Arjoon defeated Andrea King 7/9 9/2 9/6 9/6
Kayla Jeffrey defeated Ashley deGroot 9/4 9/0 9/0
Daina King received a walkover from Alysa Xavier
