It took Keisha Jeffrey the full five games to overcome Ashley Khalil in one of the round robin matches of Category `B’ of the Guyana Squash Association’s Toucan Industries Mash junior squash tournament on Friday night.
The matches between Khalil and Jeffrey are always eagerly anticipated because of the competitiveness and high quality of squash usually exhibited from the two 15-year-olds and Friday evening’s match was no exception.
In their last encounter which was in the finals of the Caribbean Junior Championships in Tortola, Khalil turned the table on Jeffrey who had previously beaten her in the women’s singles final of the national squash championships.
In Friday night’s encounter, however, Jeffrey got off to a flyer and quickly claimed the first two games 9/4 and 9/4.
Just as the match seemed all but lost Khalil came out swinging in the third set and showed why she has a reputation for being a deadly come-from-behind player by emphatically levelling the match with wins in the third and fourth games 9/1 and 9/1.
With the scores tied at two games apiece, Jeffrey rose to the occasion and raced to an early 7-2 lead.
Khalil would eventually try some last minute heroics to come as close a 5-8 but Jeffery closed her out at 9/5.
Also in Category `B’, Nicholas Narain and Joshua Abdool managed to remain unbeaten through Friday evening’s matches by gaining wins from their matches against Daina King and Kayla Jeffrey respectively.
Meanwhile, in Category `A’ Kristian Jeffrey continued to flourish and gained his latest win over Deje Dias in straight games 9/1 9/4 9/4 while Alexander Arjoon also won in straight-games over Jason-Ray Khalil 9/2 9/3 9/1.
Results from Friday’s matches are:
Category A
Alexander Arjoon defeated Jason-Ray Khalil 9/2 9/3 9/1
Kristian Jeffrey defeated Deje Dias 9/1 9/4 9/4
Category B
Keisha Jeffrey defeated Ashley Khalil 9/4 9/4 1/9 1/9 9/5
Joshua Abdool defeated Kayla Jeffrey 9/3 9/6 9/5
Nicholas Narain defeated Daina King 9/2 9/1 2/9 9/5
Category C
Abhishek Singh defeated Nyron Joseph 9/5 9/3 9/1
Mary Fung-A-Fat defeated Nyron Joseph 9/3 9/7 9/3
Category D
Brandon Bento defeated Shaquille Bowen 9/2 9/0
Category E
Samantha Fernandes defeated Rebecca Xavier 15/5 15/6
Category H
Daniel Persaud defeated Ben Mekdeci 15/8 15/6
Nicholas Peters defeated Alexander Cheeks 15/5 15/12
Category G
Alonzo Lawrie defeated Taylor Fernandes 15/8 16/17 15/12
Tricia Mannialall defeated Immanuel Barker 15/5 15/7
Alec Melville defeated Matthew Phang 13/15 15/11 17/16
