How do I return a record count?

[Frank]

Hello,
I have a named query defined as:
SELECT COUNT(ticketId) AS cnt FROM tickets
WHERE ticketClosed = 0

This is not working, how do I get the count returned?
NamedQuery query = new NamedQuery("openTicketsQuery");
List records = context.performQuery(query).;
String cnt = records.get(0).toString();

Thanks

Frank