Meagan Best, the reigning two time Barbados and Caribbean Girls Under-15 squash champion, has sensationally won the GU-15 title at the prestigious 2016 Canadian Junior Squash Open, being held fromDecember 10-13th, inclusive at the White Oaks Club, in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada.
After finishing in seventh place in December last year in the same age group, Best has shown phenomenal improvement in 2016, retaining her local and Caribbean junior titles, as well as becoming the youngest ever winner of both the Barbados and Caribbean senior individual squash titles.
In Canada, the powerfully built Best was seeded at #2, and swept through her side of the GU-15 draw like a hot knife through butter and had dropped only one game in her first four matches to reach the final. She won her GU-15 semi-final Monday against Canadian Sarah Cao in straight games 11-4, 11-7, 11-4, and in the GU-15 final held earlier yesterday morning, she faced another Canadian, Lucia Bicknell, the #3/4 seed, who upset the top seeded American, Lucie Stefanon in three straight games yesterday.
Best would have been confident going into this last encounter, however, as she had defeated Bicknell 3-0 in these championships last year on her way to finishing in 7th place, and so it proved. Best was in complete control throughout and won easily, cruising past Bicknell in three straight games 11-4, 11-2, 11-1, to claim the first Canadian junior title ever by a Barbadian player at the age of 14 years and 7 months!
A total of 283 athletes from 21 different countries, including a total of 12 junior players from Barbados, have been competing over the past four days in the U-13, -15, -17 and -19 age groups, and also playing on the final day will be Barbadians Amanda Haywood and Chelsie Samuel, in the GU-17 and GU-15 age groups respectively.
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