Badrinauth, Jeffrey crowned squash champs
By Michael DaSilva
Stabroek News
July 1, 2002
Two new champions were crowned when the Guyana Squash Association's (GSA) National Championships climaxed at the Georgetown Club yesterday.
Commonwealth Games standby and fourth place finisher in the recent St. Lucia Open, Shawn Badrinauth, captured the men's title while Denise Jeffrey won the ladies version in the absence of the defending champion Nicolette Fernandes who is currently undergoing specialised training overseas under the watchful eyes of Neil Harvey, coach of the world's number one men's player Peter Nicol.
Seeded two going into the tournament, Badrinauth disposed of the determined number four seed Robert Fernandes 9/6, 10/8, 9/2 in an entertaining final.
Jeffrey on the other hand made light work of her sister Kathy Shuffler, beating her 9-1, 9-2, 9-2.
Defending champion Regan Pollard who was seeking his third national title, failed to get past Fernandes in a semi-final fixture on Saturday night.
Fernandes came from one game down to upstage the Commonwealth Games selectee 6-9, 9-2, 8-10, 9-3, 9-3.
During their semi-final match, Pollard suffered an injury to his leg and this prompted him to opt out of the third place play-off with Julian Chin who was beaten 10-8, 9-2, 9-0 by Badrinauth in the other men's semi-final.
Chin however had to leave Guyana for Trinidad on an early flight and the organisers made a decision that there would be no third place play-off. Chin is based in Canada.
The ladies third place play-off was won by Andrea King who defeated Tiffany Solomon three sets to one.
The ladies title had eluded Jeffrey for a number of years and winning it this time around did not surprise anyone since Jeffrey has played second fiddle to Nicolette Fernandes in local tournaments over the past few years.
Nicolette will continue training with Harvey until the Commonwealth Games billed for Manchester, England, gets underway on July 20. She will be joined for the Commonwealth Games by Pollard, Canadian based Luke Fraser and possibly Badrinauth. The manager is Garfield Wiltshire.
Prior to reaching the final, Badrinauth disposed of Peter DeGroot 9-4, 9-0, 9-0 in a quarter-final match and local hockey star Jerry Bell 9-5, 9-1, 9-1 in the semi-final.
Robert Fernandes got past Medi Rahaman 9-2, 9-0, 9-2 in the preliminary round and Ryan Farnum 9-6, 9-4, 9-4 in the quarter-final.