A wild-card into the biggest tournament in squash will be up for grabs on Friday night when former pros Nick Kyme and James Stout go head-to-head in the semi-finals of the Fast Forward Freight National Championships.

The highest-ranked Bermudian from the nationals will almost certainly gain entry into the World Open later this year — though for the first time since major international squash came to the Island in 2005, Bermuda will not be able to boast a current professional in the main draw.

Kyme, the former world number 69 who quit professional squash late last year, has predictably enjoyed an easy route to the semis, having witnessed one opponent pull out through injury and otherwise not coming even close to dropping a game.

The lanky Stout, meanwhile, flew in from New York where he now lives yesterday afternoon and won both his first and second round matches, against Richard van Liendon and Jon Boody respectively, in straight games.

Though Kyme has commanded the upper hand in most of their previous encounters, the fact that he is no longer playing and training full-time makes their upcoming clash a difficult one to call.

In the other semi tomorrow night, meanwhile, defending champion and club professional Patrick Foster from England takes on Chase Toogood, the Island’s number four-ranked player.

Though Toogood’s name might imply otherwise, Foster has been in scintillating form so far this week and is expected to prove a little too hot for his opponent to handle.

In other action of note this week, Ladies Open favourite Denise Sommers — the current national team coach and former world number 24 from Holland — cruised through her first match in straight games and will be very tough to beat as the tournament heads towards the quarter-finals this evening.

Her main challengers are perennial finalists Denise Kyme and Liz Martin along with another Canadian newcomer Leah Bishop who won the Shell Divisional Handicap last September against Martin.

The tournament got underway last weekend and there’s been plenty of exciting matches across the seven divisions.

There have been no major upsets so far, but Sam de Putron deserves special mention for winning the closest Ladies Open early-round match against Val Protheroe, which de Putron won an incedible 10-9 in the fifth

The men’s number five seed Melrindo Caines, meanwhile, was surprisingly taken to five games by Under-15 national champion Kristian Muldoon — before Caines’ extra strength and fitness saw him cruise home 11-1 in the fifth.

In Under-13’s, diminutive ten-year-old Emma Keane showed she is a force to be reckoned with when she took on one of the boys, Ryan Spencer Arscott, and won in a cliff-hanger in the 5th.

The highly-rated Keane continued her march to the Under-13 girls title as well with another impressive 3-0 win (9-0,9-0,9-2)against Kinte Gilbert Stovell. She is due to meet 12-year-old D’Vario Thompson in Saturday’s final.

Either Martin or Denise Kyme are almost guaranteed to win at least one title as both are competing in both the Ladies Open and in the Ladies Veterans.

Number one seed Martin won her first Vets match without dropping a single point, while Kyme, the number two seed dropped just three points in her match.

They are schedules to meet each other in the final.