TEAM Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) blanked the Juniors 3-0, with a walkover in their first-round match of the KPMG Squash League at Liguanea Club in Kingston recently.

JDF captain Jemel Sterling earned a walkover and was awarded a score of 3-0 over the Juniors’ Krish Khemlani, who forfeited the match.

Orville Bennett beat Hinal Lohana in straight sets 21/19, 21/17, 21/18, while Ryan Foreman challenged Derrian Barrant in a four-setter while posting scores of 13/21, 21/15, 21/20 and 21/20.

Sterling is upbeat about JDF’s chances of going to the final.

“We expect to go all the way,” he said. “We’ve been to the finals before and so we’re giving it our best and we’re hoping to win this year.

“We look forward to the KPMG league every year. It is a tournament that tests your physical fitness as well as your competence as a squash player because you get to play against Jamaica’s best. The handicap allows you the added points to compete on a level playing field with these persons so we look forward to it every year.

“In the JDF we want to show that we not only focus on military sports as an armed force; we want to [also] show Jamaica that we can be involved, especially, in sports such as squash because it shows our flexibility, our adaptability as well, and the fact that we can reach the nation — through sports and through outreach programmes — through squash.”

JDF was beaten 3-0 by Blown, who went on to win the tournament, last year. Sterling is undaunted by that fact.

“We’ll continue training and we look forward to meeting them again, as we did last year,” he said. “It was a very closely contested match between us and them, so in terms of that it’s just the preparation, and coming into the game and giving it our best, and I’m sure we can win this time around.”

Two other matches were played in the round while the Premium Reserve versus Avengers matchup was postponed. Each match consists of three best-of-five games while each team consists of four players, including one reserve.

Swift Swingers defeated Army Squashers 3-0 while team Boast Busters stopped KPMG Squash Rascals by the same scoreline. Title sponsors KPMG has entered a team for the first time this season, to celebrate its 25 years of sponsorship.

The 16-team league will be on court again for the next set of matches at Liguanea Club and the Senior Common Room at The University of The West Indies today at 6:00 pm.