New Men’s Champion of the Barbados Road Tennis Open 2025

Striking a blow for the younger generation, 20 year old Shakeem Nurse, dethroned defending champion Mark ’Venom’ Griffith.  Last night at the Wildey Gymnasium, Nurse handed ‘Venom’ his first ever loss in the tournament in four years, and Venom’s first ever defeat in a three best of five match-up in Barbados.

Nurse who clearly brought his ‘A’ game to the finals, looked in superb nick as he adapted to the new matting surface better than anyone else on show at the Gymnasium on Saturday night.

In the first match after it ebbed and flowed, Nurse secured a three-point lead at 18-15 and 20-17 but could not close out the game with Griffith taking it to deuce at 20-20.

He, however, copped the next point to advance to 21-20 and held on determinedly for the win at 22-20, inside of 21 minutes, establishing an early lead against ‘Venom’  for the first time, in his third BRTO finals. 

The second game was just as exciting and tense as it was tied up numerous times at 4-4, 5-5, 6-6, 7-7, 8-8 and 12-12 before Nurse went ahead at 13-12 and never looked back or relinquished the lead to close the encounter out at 21-15.

The third game was as much a thriller as the first two, with both players exhibiting tennis of the highest quality including some long rallies. Nurse made all the running in that game pouching a 12-4 lead at one stage which Venom then reduced to 13-12 as he staged a massive fightback.

But Nurse held his composure and form and with the stars apparently aligning for him on the night, he then won the next five points to race to 18-12, holding on in resolute fashion for the win at 21-15, just after 11:30pm. It took about a hour and three minutes for Nurse to secure his first ever BRTO championship 22-20, 21-15, 21-15 and the 20 thousand dollar first prize and BRTO trophy.  Second place Griffith took home $15,000 and the BRTO trophy.

In the men’s third place play-off, 17-year-old Jael Greaves recovered from losing the first two games against Davien ‘Force Ripe’ Taylor to take the match-up by three games to two.

That battle lasted for an hour and seven minutes but at the end of it the scoreboard showed that Greaves had secured the victory 17-21, 13-21, 21-10, 21-15, 21-19, copping a magnificent tournament for him as he secured $10,000 for his efforts, whilst Taylor pocketed $5,000.00