Bermuda?s top squash player Nick Kyme was ousted in straight games from the first round of the DARE Santa Barbara Open yesterday by world number 68 Matthew Giuffre of Canada.

Despite making early inroads in each of the three games, the 23-year-old eventually succumbed to his opponents intimidating power 11-5, 11-6, 11-6 in 31 minutes on court.

Speaking to from the West Coast yesterday, Kyme admitted he had struggled to adapt to the new 11 point scoring system ? an innovation which has made matches shorter and sharper with the emphasis on outright winners as opposed to attrition.

?The new scoring system is going to take me a while to get used to because it really does not suit my game,? he said.

?My style of play has always been based on fitness and speed, trying to grind my opponents down over long periods. Under the new system, this is not always possible and even the longest games don?t seem to go much longer than 15 minutes.?

?But to be fair,? he continued, ?he adapted to the situation much better than I did and I got sucked in to playing the way he wanted to play instead of imposing myself on the match.

?Once you start playing the way your opponent wants you to play you are always likely to come out as the loser.?

The world number 85 will train in Santa Barbara for another two days before heading north to San Francisco where the Tennyson Fog City Open gets underway in just over ten days? time.

?I felt a little off the pace as soon as I arrived here,? Kyme said.

?It is a little tough coming straight from Bermuda and into a professional tournament. Hopefully in the next few months I will have acquired the funding to be able to live abroad and train but until that time I?m just going to have to make the best of it.?