Former national champion Regan Pollard booked his place in the semifinals of the Guyana Squash Association/GT&T Senior National Squash Championships after closing out Raphael deGroot in four games, in their highly contested and entertaining match on Thursday evening at the Georgetown Club.
Pollard found himself in a tight position early as deGroot played superior squash to completely take him out of the first game 3/9. deGroot’s dominance was marked my his ability to survive the long rallies combined with his skills and confidence to end those rallies at any given time with risky but equally-effective winners.
Knowing that being down 0-2 would be a serious deficit to overcome, Pollard came out in the third set and applied pressure to deGroot, as he pelted out crippling returns in the back court that were two good to be returned.
deGroot, fought in the third game but after leading 5/3, Pollard’s shot placement in the third set was overwhelming and quickly threw deGroot off of his game to take a 7/5 lead before eventually closing 9/7.
On the verge of closing-out his opponent once and for all, Pollard’s superior shot placement prevailed once again to leave his opponent in the blocks. Although signs of fatigue were evident as he just left alone a few of his opponents’ shots to conserve the little gas that was left in his tank he was able to end the match by commandingly winning the fourth and final game 9/3.
The other tight quarterfinal match was when multi-discipline athlete Jerozeno Bell tried unsuccessfully to upset number one seed Kristian Jeffrey.
Bell served as adequate preparation for Jeffrey’s semifinal match which was scheduled for last night against Nicolette Fernandes as he stole one game from the 19-year old and put up a fight in the other three before being sent into the consolation round.
Nicolette, on the other hand managed to continue her immaculate run in the competition- she has not lost a single game up to Thursday night in both male and female categories- despite a courageous performance from Oliver Downes who started strong but was unable to affect the flawless statistic in the end.
Older brother Robert Fernandes was responsible for the demise of two-time Caribbean Junior Champion Alexander Arjoon in the final match of the evening by the scores 9/2 8/10 9/4 and 9/7.
Results from Thursday’s matches:
Men’s Open Quarterfinals
Kristian Jeffrey defeated Jerozeno Bell 9/1 4/9 9/5 9/1
Nicolette Fernandes defeated Oliver Downes 9/7 9/0 9/1
Regan Pollard defeated Raphael deGroot 3/9 9/6 9/6 9/3
Robert Fernandes defeated Alexander Arjoon 9/2 8/10 9/4 9/7
Men’s Plate
Allan Downes defeated Nyron Joseph 9/0 9/1 9/0
Damian Fernandes defeated Jean-Claude Jeffrey 9/3 9/2 9/3
Deje Dias defeated Stefan Jeffrey 9/4 9/1 9/1
Jason Ray Khalil defeated Abhishek Singh 9/2 9/1 9/0
Joe Mekdeci defeated Javier Grau 9/3 9/1 9/4
Peter deGroot defeated Ingram Edwards 9/6 9/1 9/2
Luca Palazzotto received a walkover from Nicholas Narain
Juan Carlos Lazo received a walkover from Alex Gouveia
Ladies’ Consolation
Kayla Jeffrey defeated Lydia Fraser 9/1 9/1 9/0
Mary Fung-A-Fat defeated Andrea King 9/3 9/5 9/2
Daina King defeated Ashley deGroot 9/0 9/0 9/2
Victoria Arjoon received a walkover from Alysa Xavier
