JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Walcott, Thong, senior national champions

by

Walter Alibey
177 days ago
20240728
Seth Thong, left, and Chloe Walcott display their trophies after winning the Senior National Men’s and Women’s squash divisions yesterday at the Racquet Centre of the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain.

Seth Thong, left, and Chloe Walcott display their trophies after winning the Senior National Men’s and Women’s squash divisions yesterday at the Racquet Centre of the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain.

Chloe Wal­cott and Seth Thong were crowned the women’s and men’s cham­pi­ons of the T&T Se­nior Na­tion­al Squash Cham­pi­onships at the Rac­quet Cen­tre of the Queen’s Park Oval in St Clair, Port-of-Spain, Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon.

Wal­cott, a third-place fin­ish­er in the Cham­pi­onships last year, proved to be a cut above the rest from the start which con­clud­ed with a con­vinc­ing 11-9, 4-11, 7-11, 11-5, 7-11 vic­to­ry over Faith Gel­lizeau in the fi­nal.

Marie Claire-Bar­cant, the beat­en fi­nal­ist last year, was favoured to cap­i­talise on the ab­sence of Rhea Khan, the 2023 win­ner who didn’t par­tic­i­pate due to in­jury. How­ev­er, Bar­cant could not hold off Gel­lizeau, the coun­try’s ris­ing tal­ent in the semi­fi­nals.

Gel­lizeau who was fourth in the Na­tion­als last year got the bet­ter of her coun­ter­part in a fluc­tu­at­ing af­fair 8-11, 11-7, 11-6, 11-13, 8-11 to face Wal­cott in the fi­nal.

Ear­li­er, Wal­cott pre­vailed over Sigour­ney Williams in her semi­fi­nal en­counter 11-7, 11-7, 11-6.

Thong, the sec­ond-seed­ed play­er, went up against the top-seed­ed Col­in Ra­mas­ra, the mul­ti­ple-time win­ner in a show­down of youth ver­sus ex­pe­ri­ence, but Thong pre­vailed.

With de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Chayse Mc Quan out of the pic­ture due to his un­avail­abil­i­ty, Ra­mas­ra tried to re­cov­er from his loss in the fi­nal in 2023, how­ev­er, Thong held him off for the first set 11-5. Thong, fresh from the Caribbean Area Squash As­so­ci­a­tion (CASA) Cham­pi­onships last year, then se­cured the ti­tle with con­sec­u­tive vic­to­ries in the sec­ond and third sets 11-8 and 11-7.

Ear­li­er, Ra­mas­ra rolled back the years in the quar­ter­fi­nals with a straight-sets vic­to­ry over Pe­ter Pirtheesingh 11-4, 11-0, 11-2 for an easy en­try in­to the semi­fi­nals where he faced third-seed­ed Bran­don De Mon­trichard.

De Mon­trichard him­self al­so tri­umphed over An­tho­ny Al­lum, tak­ing three sets to dis­pose of his coun­ter­part. He made his in­ten­tions known ear­ly, brush­ing aside Al­lum in the first set 11-5. There­after, it was all a De Mon­trichard who whipped his op­po­nent in the oth­er two sets 11-7 and 11-3.

Ra­mas­ra had posed a dif­fer­ent chal­lenge for him in the round of four, the mul­ti­ple-time win­ner snatched the open­ing set 11-4 and pushed ahead 2-0 by claim­ing the sec­ond set 11-3. De Mon­trichard tried for a con­so­la­tion win in the fi­nal set, but the vet­er­an play­er proved too strong in the end, seal­ing the win with an 11-6 tri­umph.

Mean­while, Mon­trichard re­bound­ed to take the third-place fin­ish in the tour­na­ment when he swept past Zachary Lo­quan 3-1.

Lo­quan took the ad­van­tage with an 11-7 vic­to­ry that ap­peared to have set the stage for the fi­nal re­sult. But De Mon­trichard stormed back with three straight wins that sealed the over­all win 11-4, 11-6, 11-7 to cap­ture the third-place bronze medal.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored