Coach Jagessar calls for more children in squash

COACH of the TT junior squash team Ryan Jagessar, said he wants the pool of squash players in this country to increase, following the conclusion of the 2019 Junior Caribbean Area Squash Association Championships that were held in TT, last month.

The tournament was held at the Queen's Park Indoor Racquet Centre, Queen's Park Oval in St Clair, from July 14-20.

In the individual competition, Seth Thong was the highlight for TT as he won gold in the boys Under-13 singles. Seth's younger sister Josie Marie Thong ended third among the four players in the girls Under-11 singles. Sigourney Williams and Chloe Walcott finished fourth in the girls Under-15 and girls Under-17 singles categories respectively.

The TT coach is urging more youngsters to get involved in the sport. He said, "(The Under-13s and Under-15s) are very strong. We have a lot of potential in the Under-13s and Under-15s in both the boys and the girls. We need more children, so we encouraging everybody to bring out their children. We want to get more kids involved in squash."

In the team competition, TT finished fifth in the girls division and sixth in the boys. Jagessar said, "The team had a challenging time this time around. We got a rough group stage placing, the girls narrowly missed out on the semifinals."

Jagessar said there is work to be done in the forthcoming year. "Overall we realise we have a lot of work to do in terms of where we need to go, but I think the team is very motivated now to train hard for next year. We have a lot of technical work to do in terms of swing technique as well as working on our fitness."

The coach is targeting tournaments later this year. "There is a tournament coming up in Barbados that our kids are going to go to in November and then we are going to try to get them to the US and Canadian Opens in December."