Move over Venus and Serena Williams, Jamaica now has its own on-court family act in Jake and Mary Mahfood.

The teenaged cousins have been blazing an impressive trail in youth squash and are currently at the top of the game in Jamaica and the Caribbean.

The young athletes were the toast of last year’s Junior Caribbean Squash Championships when they took the Under-13 boys and girls titles, respectively.

In Mary’s case the regional title was a nice addition to the back-to-back All-Jamaica Under-13 Championships she won in 2008 and 2009 and the All-Jamaica Under-15 title she also took in 2009.

For Jake, the Caribbean Championships was a day of reckoning as he defeated the player who kept him in the runner-up slot the previous year when the tournament was held in Bermuda. “I got my revenge,” says Jake. “I went into that match looking for revenge and to beat him more than he had beaten me and I just stayed and played well.”

Articulate and polite, assertive and precocious, at 13 Jake already exudes the confidence and self-assurance of a veteran champion. His slight frame belies a killer instinct that has him literally throwing himself after every shot in a style that conjures memories of the teenaged Boris ‘Boom Boom’ Becker diving for balls on the Wimbledon lawns.

“No matter what I do I’m always trying to win and even when it’s hard to win I just have to fight through the fight,” he said. “One of my coaches once told me that there’s always a third engine and that’s what helps you to push through and I always think about that when I am on the court.”

In contrast, Mary is more laid back, but no less lethal as her track record proves. Unlike Jake, who has been playing squash since he was three years old, she only recently took up the game. “I’ve been playing squash for about three and a half years, before that I played tennis, but I didn’t really enjoy it, so because my family had always played squash my mom got me lessons.”

A year and half after her first squash lesson Mary was placed on the Junior National Squad and began travelling to play tournaments. The rest was literally history, as she rose quickly through the rankings and became a national champion just two years after she first picked up a racquet.

Of all her achievements to date, she counts winning the Caribbean Girls Under-13 Championships, which happily coincided with Jake’s triumph in the boys’ category, as her finest hour.

“It was actually pretty cool for the both of us to be representing Jamaica and for both of us to win the Under-13 championships,” she says. “That was really a great achievement for us.”

As sociable and outgoing teenagers, neither Jake nor Mary feels that any aspect of their adolescence is being sacrificed for their athletic careers. However, they both admit that to have the best of both worlds they’ve learned to be disciplined and judicious with their time.

“Balancing school and squash is a challenge, but I get through it fine,” Mary says. “I train five days a week and I play squash for two hours then I go home and do my work. Then on weekends I go out with my friends, so it’s pretty easy to balance.”

Similarly Jake says: “I’m doing pretty well in school because I have to do my work first and then I come to train, but when I train I have fun.”

In fact Jake also plays football competitively and while he is happy to juggle both sports he does have one driving ambition. “I’d like to be on the squash pro circuit and become number one in the world,” he says. “I really think it’s possible because, in my opinion, champions are made through hard work and determination.”

And while Mary isn’t necessarily planning to go pro at this stage she also cannot imagine her future without squash. “I will always play squash even if it’s just recreation, I will stick to the game,” she says. “When I go on the court I can just forget everything else and just play. I love the game.”