UPDATED: Chiara's big day

Chiara has just finished her final dress rehearsal before tonight's semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest. Everything went smoothly and as planned, and she got a warm applause at the end.

According to reviewiers, it would be a surprise if Malta did not qualify for Saturday's final.

With just hours to go before the show kicks off at 9 p.m. on TVM (local time), the tension is mounting.

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Chiara is in her hotel room getting ready for the final dress rehearsal that will be held this afternoon, before tonight's anticipated semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Chiara chose to have a late breakfast with her make-up artist Diane Nikolic and her husband Peter Okagbue, who arrived in Moscow last night.

"I'm trying to treat this as a normal day because I get excited if I think about it too much. I'm feeling prepared, calm and ready to go," Chiara told timesofmalta.com.

The chase against time has started - Chiara started off by having her nails manicured by Angele Stafrace, then her hair was put in rollers and styled by Alexander's. She will change and have her make-up done at the arena, where she has ample time to spare before going on stage.

Tonight Chiara will be singing in 17th position from 18 countries, a placing that is considered to work to Malta's advantage since it leaves a better imprint on people's mind.

Things are looking good for Malta and the preliminary results of The Big Poll, just released by esctoday.com, show that the countries that gained most points since the rehearsals are (in alphabetical order): Belgium, Bosnia Herzegovina, FYR Macedonia and Malta.

The Europrediction 2009, which has 46,000 valid votes and was conducted by oikotimes.com, also predicted that Malta will sail through tonight's first hurdle.

Chiara believes her competition is coming mainly from Bosnia Herzegovina's Regina, who perform straight after her act.

The 18 countries in the semi-final will be competing for 10 spots - nine countries will be chosen through televoting, and the 10th spot, the wild card, will go to the song that placed the highest in the juries' voting, but did not qualify through televoting.

The countries that qualify will be announced by the presenters without any points or placings. The full results and the songs who were awarded the wild card in both semi-finals will be announced after Saturday's final.

In the meantime, Chiara is focusing on keeping herself occupied. She thanked everybody who helped her throughout this adventure and said: "I can feel everyone's support and tonight I'm singing for them."