By Avenash Ramzan
One of the country’s most successful youth teams, the Junior squash team, will look to successfully defend the Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Junior title when the prestigious tournament is hosted in Guyana in 2017.
Team Guyana, comprising some of the most talented and outstanding youth players of the region, copped a record 12th Junior CASA title last year, when the tournament was held in the Cayman Islands in July.
The news of Guyana hosting this year’s competition was made public by president of the Guyana Squash Association president, David Fernandes.
“We will be hosting the Junior CASA in July so our players will start training early. They will be determined to surprise everyone again and try to win their 13th title,” he said.
Last year, Guyana retained the overall Team Title for the 12th consecutive time with a hard-fought three matches to two victory in the Boys Team segment, while earlier in the day, the Girls had narrowly lost to Barbados by three matches to two, to finish second.
On home turf later this year, the Guyanese will look to cop title number 13 against their counterparts from the other Caribbean territories. Given their familiarity to the courts here and the usually massive home support, the Guyanese are firm favourites to repeat as Team champions.
However, it will by no means be an easy task for the host nation, as the other countries would no doubt be looking to up their game, especially the Bajans, who gave the Guyanese a run in 2016.
With an active and successful youth programme, the Guyana Squash Association would be gauging the players progress over the coming months to derive the best possible team to compete at the championships.
