Heeding Sports Minister Randy Horton's prompting that they should "relieve visiting teams from having to carry trophies back home", Bermuda's squash players made a "love-ly" start to their Rosebowl 2002 campaign last night.

Coming up against the Bahamas following the opening ceremony at the Bermuda Squash Racquets Association, the Island's Men's A, Men's B and Veterans teams made a 5-0 clean sweep of the matches in their division. It would have been 5-0 for the Ladies too but, in the evening's nightcap, Liz Martin squandred a 2-0 set lead and went down to Valerie Barry 9-4, 9-6, 7-9, 3-9, 1-9 to leave her team winners by 4-1.

National men's champion Nick Kyme set the winning tone with a polished demolition of Troy Rahming 9-0, 9-0,9-1. His team-mates did not miss a beat. Chase Toogood lived up to his surname, dispensing with Adrian Burrows by a straight-sets margin of 9-1, 9-1, 9-1 while expatriate southpaw, Gary Plumstead, romped to an entertaining 9-1, 9-0, 9-0 success over Paul Brown.

Tommy Sherratt and Ryan Bell were not to be left out of the celebrations beating Kirk McKenzie and Cliff Bodie 9-4, 9-0, 9-0 and 9-3, 9-5, 9-1 respectively.

"I'm pretty happy with my form right now though I like to think I can always get better. I've been doing a lot more off-court training in the gym and swimming," said 21-year-old Kyme, who hardly broke sweat en route to victory.

His counterparts in Men's B did not need to even consider sweating as the Bahamas - not fielding any competitors in that division - gave the host team a walkover.

Apart from Martin, Bermuda's ladies earned a share of the spotlight. It was there that the night's drama unfolded with national champion Tessa MacKenzie showing a never-say-die spirit as she clawed back from two sets down to oust Seraphina Johnson in a gripping five-setter. The scoreline: 8-10, 7-9, 9-1, 9-5, 9-6.

"It was tough as I expected it to be. We played each other last year and it was the same 3-2 result but she won. This time I I managed to get it," said MacKenzie.

Lyn Furtado and Denise Kyme won their matches against Lisa Fields and Sabrina Barry respectively in straight sets - 9-2, 9-3, 9-0 and 9-3, 9-5, 9-2. Suzanne Rose had a walkover.

In the Veterans' match-ups, Bermudians Kirk Caza and Christine Barnes also won by 3-0 routs while Tony Prentice was stretched to 3-1 and John Stout and Val Protheroe enjoyed walkovers.

Earlier in the day, Jamaica defeated Cayman Islands 3-2 in the Men's A and received walkovers in the other three categories.