Squash sweetheart Alyssa Mullings blew through the field at the All-Jamaica Junior Championships, to retain the Girls Open title at the tournament which was held on the weekend.

The top-performing teenager maintained her dominant form, beating arch-rival Mary Mahfood 3-2 to win the championship. The victory is another confidence booster for the youngster who is set to defend her regional Under-15 title at the Caribbean Area Squash Association Championships in Trinidad and Tobago, July 19-27.

Another successful title defence was posted by Mia Mahfood who easily retained her Under-13 crown. Mahfood came through the round-robin tournament with the maximum 12 points, while Mira Handa was second with nine and Mia Lake placed third with six.

several newcomers

In the boys' competition, several newcomers managed to assert themselves. Last year's Under-17 Champion, Julian Morrison, took the Under-19 title without losing a match, finishing with 12 points to relegate perennial rival Jake Mahfood to second. Mahfood had better luck in the Under-17 competition, where he won the overall title.

New champions emerged in all of the other age groups including Tahjia Lumley who held off last year's Under-13 boys champion, Jonathan Walker, to win the Under-15 boys title. Lumley's 3-1 victory left Walker in second place while Luke Roberts beat Adam Ardito 3-1 to place third.

Ardito came out on top in the Under-13 boys competition, finishing ahead of Joe Rousseau whom he beat 3-0. In the Under-11 competition, the winner was Sebastian Levy who earned nine points to beat William Wildish who finished with six points.

"Overall, we saw a good standard of play in this year's Championships," said coach Rene Denis, who is in charge of the national junior squash programme.

"In addition to technique, we have been placing a lot of emphasis on overall fitness and we're starting to see some of the benefits of that now in competition," he added.