Cypriots with three berths in singles finals

The inaugural Small States of Europe Championship, under the auspices of the European Table Tennis Union, came to a close yesterday with the singles tournaments at the Cottonera Sports Complex.

As happened in Day One of the championship, it was the Cypriot players who dominated the scene by scooping the major part of the honours at stake.

Yesterday, two Cypriots - Marios Yiangou and Neophythou Panayotis - reached the final of the men's tournament while compatriot Luiza Kourea made it to the final of the women's competition.

Yiangou came from 3-2 down to beat Panayotis 4-3 (3-11, 5-11, 11-8, 11-5, 7-11, 11-8, 11-7) but Kourea failed to emulate Yiangou and lost to Monaco's Agnes Le Lannic 3-0 (11-6, 11-7, 12-10).

The opening day of the championship saw the Cypriots finishing first in the men's team tournament ahead of Malta, Monaco and the Isle of Man. The women's team tournament was won by Monaco ahead of Cyprus and Malta.

Andrejz Makowski, who played for Malta on Saturday, was unavailable yesterday as he was not fully fit. The local players in the singles tournament, under the guidance of coach Alex Anastasi, were Edward Baldacchino, Claudio Tufigno, David Pace and Mark Azzopardi and Alex Soler.

Baldacchino and Tufigno were eliminated in the quarter-finals, the former losing to Yiangou 4-0.

Johanna Grech, Roxanne Palla, Jessica Pace and Gayle Caruana failed to make the knock-out stages of the women's competition.