PLAYERS from eight countries will be involved in the Caribbean Area Squash Association (CASA) Championships from tomorrow at two venues in north Trinidad.

The main site for the eight-day tournament is Cascadia Squash Club, St Ann's, but the Queen's Park Oval Club, St Clair, will also be used.

Players from some of the seven visiting teams — Barbados, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Guyana, Jamaica, OECS (Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States), Venezuela — were expected to arrive last night and the rest should be here today.

Eight men and seven women have been training to represent host country Trinidad and Tobago and while they will all compete in the individual events, the teams will consist of only five each. The starting line-ups were expected to be announced last night.

Colin Ramasra, the six-time national champion and two-time CASA singles runner-up, and three-time national champ Josh Pinard are the top two T&T male players.

The list also includes Paul Jerome De Verteuil, Ryan Abraham and former top junior Kale Wilson, the trio who helped Ramasra to capture this country's only team title three years ago.

Junior Chayse McQuan and Patrick brothers, Mandela and Nku, are expected to be the reserves.

The United States-based Kerrie Sample, the Briton of local parentage who won the Caribbean under-19 title for T&T three years ago and helped the women win their only team title a few weeks later, is back to lead the women.

As always, 17-time national champ Rhea Khan is there, as well as Charlotte Knaggs, who recently shocked Khan to be crowned national champ for the first time and went on to be crowned Caribbean under-17 champ for the second straight time a few weeks ago.

Gen Shin, Joanna Augustus, Talia Abdool and Jessica Scott are the ones in line for the fifth place on the team.

The individual events will be contested from tomorrow morning until Tuesday night, while the team events will take place from Wednesday until next Saturday night.

The CASA Championships were inaugurated in 1977 and contested every two years until it became an annual event three years ago. T&T have only previously hosted in 1993 and 2005.

OECS were crowned men's champs last year, while Barbados captured the women's, veterans' (over-40) and overall crowns.