Last weekend, Caribbean and Guyana Junior Under-15 Champion Shomari Wiltshire won the 2018 Newport Steamer Summer Gold Under-15 Squash Tournament, in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
With 280 players registered for the tournament, (Gold Tournaments rank second to the Junior Championships (JCT) in the USA), it was one of the largest non JCT events for the year. Wiltshire, who won the Finger Lakes Gold Tournament in September 2017, and had accumulated points at the US Junior Squash Open in December 2017, was the Number One seed in the Boys Under-15 draw.
In the first round, Wiltshire defeated Omar Cochinwala 11 – 2, 11 – 4, 11 – 5, and in the second round he defeated Isaac Mitchell 11 – 5, 11 – 1, 11 – 4, to reach the quarter-finals. In the quarter-finals he faced Ashton Monteiro, who had finished runner-up in the Washington DC Gold Tournament, earlier in the summer. Wiltshire lost the first game 7 – 11, but bounced back to win the next three games 11 – 2, 11 – 6, 11 – 7.
In the semi-finals, Wiltshire came up against Hollis Robertson, who had won two Under 15 Summer Gold tournaments, the Washington DC Junior Gold and the 2018 Virginia Summer Gold, and was seeded 3/4 in the tournament. It was to be Wiltshire’s toughest match in the competition. He dropped the first game 7 – 11, but rebounded to win the next two games 11 – 5, 11 – 6. At 9 all in the fourth game, two points away from reaching his second Gold Under-15 final, he committed an unforced error and ended up losing the game 9 – 11. In the final game, trailing 1 – 5, he kept a cool head and staged a comeback to win the game, 11 – 8, and take the match.
In the finals, Wiltshire was pitted against the Number Two seed, Robert Avram. The match was a bit of an anti-climax after the semi-final matchup of the previous evening, as Wiltshire won easily in straight games 11 – 6, 11 – 5, 11 – 2, to take his second US Gold tournament.
Shomari Wiltshire, who is currently sponsored by Dunlop and is a Banks DIH Rainforest Waters Brand Ambassador will attend a Summer Squash Camp next week, from August 20 – 24, at the Chatham Club in New Jersey, organized by Sunil Seth, a current Guyana National player. (Courtesy of the Guyana Squash Association)
