A changing of the guard took place at the Bermuda Squash Racquets Association last night as Laurens Jan Anjema toppled defending champion David Palmer to win the Randall & Quilter Legends of Squash tournament.

Australian Palmer won the opening game to seize early control before Holland’s Anjema rallied to win the next three games and clinch an exciting and entertaining best-of-five final that lived up to expectations 9-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-5.

“Squash is such a physical game and you need to be tactically very good and I’m good enough tactically to compete with these guys, but still I never really felt in control tonight,” Anjema said. “David was in control, but I just got one more ball back every time.

“I lost the first game and I knew David was going to put everything on that first game because if he didn’t win that first game it was going to be very, very tough for him.”

Anjema was making his first appearance in Bermuda in more than decade.

“I was here in 2007 for the [Endurance] World Open event and when I got the invite to play the legends it was a bit surreal,” he said.

Multiple world champion Palmer said: “It didn’t go my way today, but I’m still very happy with the way I played.

“He was just too fit, too strong.”

Peter Marshall beat John White 5-11, 8-11 in the best-of-three consolation final.