squash glory this week as the Junior Caribbean Squash Championships get underway on the Island.

Bermuda are not among the favourites for the tournament, being held at the Devonshire Squash Raquets Club on Middle Road, but they do have one or two aces up their sleeve.

The event features matches for under-19, under-17, under-15 and under-13 boys and girls, in line with World Squash Federation guidelines, and in the under-17 boys bracket Bermuda have the number one seed in James Stout.

Director of Squash and tournament referee and director, Ross Triffitt said: "This is the cream of the crop from the Caribbean as far as junior championships go.

"We have teams from the Bahamas, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados as well as from Bermuda and the competition is very strong. Most of the players at under-19 level are already representing their countries at adult level.'' Triffitt went on: "In the overall tournament we (Bermuda) are not the favourites but we are expected to do fairly well because we are on home turf.

"James Stout is the number one ranked under-17-year-old and he is expected to win all of his matches.'' Triffitt believed squash ranked relatively highly as far as sports on the Island were concerned, with one in every hundred people taking part at one level or another.

"We have around 150 kids in the junior programme each week,'' he said.

The draw and seedings for the event were decided at a meeting on Sunday night and by yesterday afternoon Bermuda already had one semi-finalist -- Andrew Robinson progressing well in the under-15 section.

The only player defending a title is Nicolette Fernandez from Guyana in the under-19 championship.

As well as James, the Stout family are also represented by boys under-13 second seed, Andrew. He was runner-up last year in the under-12s against top seed Bryant Cumberbatch of Barbados.

Today's matches begin at 10.00 a.m and play continues until 9.00 p.m. These matches include quarter-finals and some semi-finals, with all finals to be played tomorrow.

Admission for spectators is free.