Gerada cruises to semis

Simon Gerada powered his way to the last four of the singles tournament at the Gozo Sports Complex, a show of quick, effective play also earning Malta's top seed a place on the podium for sure.

After a rather poor performance by the Maltese in the teams' competitions earlier this week, Gerada finished on top in Group A yesterday, winning six successive games.

However, there was no good news from the women's camp as Johanna Grech and Christine Cassar Torreggiani were both eliminated from the group stages of the singles competition.

In Gozo, Gerada swept all opposition aside including a 3-0 thrashing of San Marino gold medalist Trajan Ciocu, of Luxembourg.

His other victims were Ognian Serafimov, of Cyprus, Dominik Marxer, of Liechtenstein, and Andorra's Pere Valero Macias.

In the other seven-man group, Edward Baldacchino managed to a halt a sequence of four successive losses by beating Ignassi Crifull Altarriba, of Andorra, 3-0, and the spirited Peter Formelt, of Liechtenstein, 3-2.

Grech managed two victories from five qualifiers. She beat Andorra's Bertrand 3-0 and Olaf, of Iceland, 3-0. Cassar Torreggiani lost all four matches.

The singles semi-finals and finals, for both categories, are scheduled for tomorrow. The one-day doubles tournaments will be played today at the same venue.

Men's semi-finals: Gerada vs K. Talavanov (Cyprus); Stephenson (Iceland) vs Ciocu (Luxembourg).