When most players would have lost hope and given up, Nyron Joseph produced his best squash to relinquish a two-game deficit en-route to becoming the 2012 Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Junior Caribbean Under 17 Champion last night at the Liguanea Club Kingston Jamaica.
Miraculously, Joseph defea`ted Bermuda’s star under campaigner d’Vario Thompson in five games to win the boys’ Under 17 title in his freshman year in the age category. What was even more unbelievable was the way in which Joseph achieved his second straight Junior CASA title.
Just as he did in the semi-final on Saturday night against Nku Patrick, Joseph lost the first two games in the three best of five format, and won three consecutive games to close out Thompson. It was no fault of Thompson, but Joseph just seemed to thrive under pressure. His skill, clutch play and composure combined with the wisdom from national coach Carl Ince and team manager Garfield Wiltshire, were the ingredients for the most thrilling and entertaining match of the tournament this year.
Pressure did not even seem to bother Joseph as was illustrated in the second game where he played ‘through the leg’ shots on back-to-back points even though he had been trailing by two points in game two after losing the first game. The left-handed Thompson powerfully pounced on all of Joseph’s backhand shots that were returned to the left side of the court. But in the third game, Joseph attacked Thompson’s backhand and got the result he was looking for.
The stellar determination of the 15-year-old Christ Church student helped steal the momentum as he dived to retrieve some of Thompson’s superbly placed shots and got up in time to return the ensuing shot.
Thompson seemed especially frustrated in the fifth and final game by his opponent’s marvellous athleticism, while the jaunty Joseph was more composed than a symphony from Tchaikovsky. Finally, after committing an unforced error while attempting a winner in the front court, Thompson surrendered the game to an ecstatic Joseph who threw his racquet into the air and raced to embrace his compatriots in jubliation.
Earlier in the evening, Victoria Arjoon experienced yet another heart-breaking loss to defending U17 champion Charlotte Knaggs of Trinidad and Tobago. Knaggs who snapped Arjoon streak of four Junior CASA titles in Guyana last year, won in straight game fashion 11/8, 11/5, 11/2. Number one seeded Larissa Wiltshire was also stunned by two-time Junior CASA under 13 champion Alyssa Mullings who added the U15 title to her résumé.
