Bruce Burrowes and Sanjana Nallapati were crowned champions of the inaugural Jamaica invitational squash tournament at the Liguanea Club last Saturday. The four-day tournament attracted three overseas players from Guyana, The Bahamas, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The final match of the tournament promised fireworks between the number one seed Ashante Smith, who played a gruelling five-setter semi-final the night before against Jonathan Hope of The Bahamas, and the number two seed Bruce Burrowes, who defeated Stephan Morrison in a straight sets semi-final.

Burrowes showcased his power game in the final against Smith in some long rallies, which ended in his favour majority of the time. The first set included an especially long rally with the score on 5-0, which eventually ended 11-1 as Smith had trouble dealing with Burrowes’ power game. Both players were tied at 3-3 in the second set but Burrowes pulled away to take the set 11-5. The third set saw them tied at 3-3 again with long rallies and both players extending themselves and even landing full face on the court, but Burrowes proved the fitter player on the night to win the set 11-4 and the match in straight sets 3-0.

“It’s always nice to be the first of anything so to be the inaugural winner of the inaugural championship, that’s always pretty fun to say. I just went out there, I had had a game plan, I stuck to it and the game plan worked. Power is part of the game plan. Fitness is part of the game plan. Don’t burn unnecessary energy. Be energy efficient when you are able to be it. Just take it one rally at a time and I think that strategy worked today. I am very happy,” said a jubilant Burrowes.

Stephan Morrison came fourth by way of walk over as Jonathan Hope was not able to play the third-place play-off match. Jerazeno Bell of Guyana was sixth while Leonel Sorrillo of Trinidad & Tobago was eight.

On the female side, the number two seed Sanjana Nallapati, who was undefeated throughout the tournament got the better of an improved Elle Wilson in four sets with scores of 11-3, 10-12, 11-7, 11-5.

“I have been working very hard towards it especially playing in this tournament against everyone else. There were some pretty good matches out there, first and second matches, third matches obviously. Playing against Elle after a long time was quite nice. She’s improved quite a bit. Unfortunately, I did not get to play Maher which is usually a battle between us two, which is sad but I think it would have been a pretty good match,” said Nallapati.

Mehar Trahan entered the tournament as the number one seed. She was unbeaten for the first three rounds but got sick and could not continue the tournament on the final day.

Tracey Binnie placed second, while Trahan was third, and Wilson bagged fourth place. The ladies played in a round-robin format.

Karen Anderson, president of Jamaica Squash, was pleased with the tournament.

“I think it worked very well. It’s the first year for the event so obviously there are some growing pains but we are happy with the turnout. We are happy with the level of play and we are excited to see what it holds as we continue to grow it going forward,” Anderson said.