Defending Barbados Open Squash champion Guyanese Shawn Badrinauth made a successful defence of his title when he took out France's Johan Bouquet in the men's final of the Trident Insurance sponsored tournament at the Barbados Squash Club's Marine Gardens court on Saturday evening.

According to Badrinauth's compatriot Robert Fernandes, Badrinauth retained his title for the third consecutive year by defeating Bouquet 3-2 in the thrilling men's final.

Speaking to Stabroek Sport by telephone yesterday, Fernandes said the service changed hands quite a few times in the first and second games but in the end, Badrinauth came out on top. However, Bouquet won the third and fourth games, but Badrinauth finished him off in the fifth to retain his title.

Fernandes said in the fifth, and final game, Bouquet established an 8-5 lead and had the match ball on a few occasions but Badrinauth was at his best and he first levelled the score before pulling off one of his greatest victories.

"It was real high quality squash," Fernandes said adding, "there was a lot of rallies between the two, the semi-final with him (Badrinauth) and (Andre) Poupel lasted one hour 23 minutes and this final lasted one hour 18 minutes, so it was remarkable of him (Badrinauth) to recover so quickly and win. He (Badrinauth) proved his class by beating two tough cookies in back-to-back matches. The man (Bouquet) did everything right but Shawn wanted to win the game more than he did."

According to Fernandes, the ladies title was won by Barbados' Karen Meakins who beat Canada's Ruchika Kumar, the number one seeded ladies player in the final on Saturday evening also.