It was third time lucky for Douglas Olson and Kirby Smith when they won the fifth annual BIAS Educational Squash Tournament at the weekend.

The 12-year-old Douglas, who walked off with a $500 mutual fund investment, and Kirby have played together in the tournament for the past three years, reaching the finals in 2000.

The event, held at the Bermuda Squash Racquets Association, has proved popular among the players since its inception.

The three-month long tournament attracted 33 teams of one child aged under 13 and one adult, who in most instances were either a parent or older sibling.

Round robin games took place last Autumn and the 16 winning teams went forward to the knockout draw which was played over Saturday and Sunday.

A handicap system was employed, based on ability and previous results, to even out imbalances in skill levels. Each adult played three games against their adult opponent and the younger partners played three games against each other.

In the event of an overall tie in the six games, a tiebreak was played between the two young opponents.

There were several exciting matches with five tiebreaks necessary to determine the winning pairs through the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals.

Alex Furtado (11) and her father Norman were the runners-up with Norman beating Kirby Smith in the first game of the final but losing the following two games. In the younger pairs, despite a cool performance from Alex, Olson successfully took all three games.

Both Alex Furtado and Olson are in the national training programme.