Guyana ‘s Kristian Jeffrey roared into the quarter-finals of the Under-19 boys’ singles event at the sixth Pan American Junior squash championships with a hard-fought win over Peru’s Andres Duany at the Liguanea Club, Jamaica, yesterday.
Jeffrey, the tournament’s fourth seed, had defeated Rodolfo Weisskopf from El Salvador 9/3 9/0 9/0 on Monday.
Yesterday, he took out the determined Duany 6/9 9/3 5/9 9/3 9/0 to advance to the quarter finals which was billed to take place last night 7.30pm Jamaica time.
The Mexican de Paul had defeated Guyanese Raphael DeGroot in the first round on Monday.
However, Guyana’s Kayla Jeffrey went down to the Mexican number one Alicia Rodriguez late yesterday afternoon. Rodriguez won 9/2, 9/1, 9/1.
According to reports from Jamaica, all the local players represented themselves well with some even surpassing expectations.
Under-15 Caribbean champion, Alexander Arjoon, “played good, solid squash against seventh-seed Mauricio Dasso of Peru, but in the end the superior player prevailed 9/0 9/4 9/6,” a release from the Guyana Squash Association stated.
“Deje Dias also gave a good account of himself against number two-seed Gonzalo Miranda. Although Dias earned numerous handouts, the Argentine never let his young opponent affect the score sheet with Dias losing 0/9 0/9 0/9.
“Caribbean Under-15 champion Ashley Khalil was slightly out of her league against Mexican Graciela Lopez. She went down 0/9 0/9 5/9.”
“But the evening belonged to Kayla Jeffrey who played her usual tenacious style to out-hustle sixth-seed Ann Marie Lora of the Dominican Republic,” the release stated.
“Jeffrey started off with a high tempo game to race to an early lead before her more experienced opponent came back to take the game 9/7. Jeffrey stuck to her game plan of taking the ball early and kept her opponent on the defensive throughout the second set which she won 9/3.
“The third was a close affair that went down to the wire, but once Jeffrey took that game at 10/8 it was obvious that she was on top of her opponent. She never let Lora into the fourth game, punishing her opponent with pace and pouncing on any loose shots to become the first Guyanese to reach the quarter-final of this tournament.”
Results:Alexander Arjoon lost to Mauricio Dasso (PER) 0/9 4/9 6/9
Deje Dias lost to Gonzalo Miranda (ARG) 0/9 0/9 0/9
Ashley Khalil lost to Graciela Lopez (MEX) 0/9 0/9 5/9
Kayla Jeffrey defeated Ann Marie Lora (DOM REP) 7/9 9/3 10/8 9/2.
