After helping Bermuda to their highest ever finish at the men's junior world squash championships in New Jersey, where he also won the Fair Player's Award, Bermuda number one Nick Kyme is now preparing for the Commonwealth Games encouraged by his recent improvement.

The 17-year-old relishes his biggest challenge yet in Malaysia where he will come up against some of the best in the world. And he's looking forward to the experience.

"The Commonwealth Games will certainly be my biggest challenge,'' he says.

"I will probably end up playing somebody ranked in the top five, and if I do then my goal will be to just try not to lose disgracefully,'' he says with a grin.

Kyme is one of two squash players representing Bermuda at the Games, the other being 20-year-old Tommy Sherratt.

And whatever happens in Kuala Lumpur, the youngster will still look back on 1998 as one in which he made his mark.

Kyme has been outstanding on the college scene while representing Taft High School of Connecticut at events on the Eastern seaboard. And the fine run at school culminated last week when he helped Bermuda to their first ever win at the world championships, beating Kenya.

That result against the African country and a later win over Venezuela was made all the more sweet as Kyme was later voted by referees, coaches and players as the fairest player in the entire competition.

"It was good to have us win our first match, but I still feel that we could have finished even a little higher than 27th place. But I guess the important thing is that we didn't finish any lower,'' he added.

By beating out three other countries in the field of 30, Kyme ended a stretch which has seen he and his Bermuda team-mates finish last in previous championships in Hong Kong, New Zealand and Egypt.

Bermuda's best previous performance was in Egypt when they came close to recording victory over Cyprus.

As such the win over Kenya will be long remembered by Kyme who played in the event for the last time along with Michael Stout and Sam Stevens. Like Kyme, Stout will also be too old for the championships scheduled for Italy in two years' time.

"I knew we could do it, I wasn't surprised at all. In fact, you could say that I was sort of panicky at times, fearing that we would be unable to do it,'' said Kyme. "My performance throughout was quite good, I was winning a lot of matches until the final rounds. But the others played well, for them it was their first time against top juniors and playing at a high level.

"In the first few games they looked nervous, but after three matches they settled down and won a few games.

"Previously we've had a individual victories but we couldn't pick up an overall team win. This time we did it.'' NICK KYME -- winner of the Fair Player Award at the recent World Junior Men's Squash Championships in New Jersey.