Were it not for the 98° heat on the beach at Brandons, top seeds Elwyn Oxley and Gregory Gill were on their way towards the fifth and easiest payday at the eighth Sizzlin’ Sands Barbados Sunsplash at midday, yesterday.
Oxley and Gill advanced to the finals to meet the Trinidad & Tobago pair of Fabian Whitfield and Simon Blakes last night, after scoring a facile semi-finals win, 21-9, 21-12, over the erratic Kengie Matthews and Jamaican Mark Lewis who would have caused Oxley/Gill many horrors in tandem with Dany Wilson.
Both teams employed similar strategies with the serve going to Matthews and Gill to deny Oxley and Lewis spiking opportunities. However, while the unflappable Gill scored his sets at will, Oxley demoralized Matthews with some early crushing blocks which he never recovered from.
Down and trailing in both sets, Lewis/Matthews still employed the same tactic and the innocuous serves used, in spite of the pair being capable of vicious spike serves, confused the spectators. Hardly pressed, Oxley/Gill would have been almost fresh when they met Whitfield/Blake in the six o’clock finals.
That Trinidad and Tobago pair easily went past first time finalists, Kyle Browne and Jabarry Goodridge, 21-13, 21-14.
Perennial queens, Karen Sutherland and Maxine James moved into another finals by stopping the Bajan pair of Julia Lewis and Anthazia Mason, 25-15, 25-16. The Canadians advanced to battle one of their country mates, Leila Pieper who in partnership with Shari Matthews, disposed of Kittitians, Brenda Allen and Shanicia Dyer, 21-13, 21-12.
That would have been the first beach finals for Matthews and Pieper with the defense crazy Canadian displaying tremendous game smarts to complement Matthews’ elevation and net aggression. Such skills would have been critical to stop Sutherland/James who play a game of attrition wearing down opponents and accumulating points with minimum fuss.
