Madison Fernandes is one of Guyana’s multi-sport national athletes who dissects her time between her love for hockey and her involvement in squash.
The 14-year-old is unassuming with the hockey stick in hand and scurries around the squash court just like an adolescent who is in love with the sport would do.
Included in her DNA is a rich sporting background where the Fernandes’ name reeks dominance both locally and internationally with the likes of Nicolette Fernandes and more recently Taylor Fernandes, who both clinched major international and Caribbean titles that kept the family’s name fresh in the minds of sports enthusiasts. So, with Taylor out of her junior days following the fairy-tale ending to her junior career, where she clinched a Caribbean gold medal in front of her family and friends in Georgetown two years ago, Stabroek Sport went in search of the Fernandes who is next in line to keep the sport alive. It was not that difficult to conclude that the burden fell on Madison.
Naturally, we wondered whether she felt any pressure, with the knowledge that she is one of the millennials tasked with keeping the flame burning.
“Honesty, not at all, really. I was introduced to hockey first and I started playing squash around nine-ish,” she recalled.
Madison, however, was faced with a dilemma of a different kind; her first love hockey started to tug on her heartstrings a bit more, and her interest began to tip in that direction. It was the hockey stick over the racquet.
“Squash, I really liked it from the start but hockey, it took me a while to get into it. It used to be about squash all the time but right now, I’ve started to focus on my hockey some more,” the young sensation told Stabroek Sport.
The Marian Academy Student also revealed that the love for her ‘girls’ at her locally-based club, GCC Bingo Spartans, which she spoke fondly of, helped in her decision to go for a team over individualism. Already starting to charter her course as someone well beyond her age, Madison said her immediate goal is to secure a scholarship and she hopes to do so through academia and her exploits as a field hockey player.
Asked why she chose to brandish the number ‘7’ on her playing jersey since most players attached a number to something that is sentimental, it was no surprise that hers reflected an umbilical attachment.
“My dad [Philip Fernandes] played with number seven so, I don’t know, my sister took my mom’s number, and I took dad’s, and I like the number seven too,” she said.
Asked what piques her interest apart from her immediate goal of securing a student-athlete scholarship, Madison explained she is keen on playing at the 2020 Junior Pan America Cup following the qualifiers in 2019.
There is also the possibility of her playing in this year’s junior Caribbean Squash Tournament in Trinidad and Tobago where she can contribute to Guyana’s efforts to reclaim their regional supremacy.
