Squash teams prevail

The Maltese squash teams at the GSSE made it two wins out of two yesterday to maintain their charge towards the top placings in the provisional standings of the teams competitions in Vaduz.

Carl Camilleri, Brad Hindle Deguara, Mark Lupi, Daniel Zammit Lewis and Joseph Desira, the men’s team, beat Monaco 4-1 while their female compatriots, Diane Desira, Annabelle Olivieri Munroe and debutant Colette Sultana, whitewashed their oppon-ents 3-0.

In the men’s competition, Camilleri earned his team’s first point of the day after a hard-fought 3-1 win over Raphael Daney.

Lupi was next on court but he got beaten 3-1 by Kristoff Balleria.

However, Zammit Lewis soon lifted the team’s spirits as he outclassed Jerome Gobert 3-0 while Desira chalked up Malta’s third point with a similar victory over Nicolas De Caillande.

Hindle Deguara then sealed the win with another comfortable 3-0 win over Kristian Billard.

In the women’s tournament, Sultana, 15, had an outstanding debut in the Games when she outsmarted Fanny Clarinsi 3-0.

Olivieri Munroe and Desira were in equal dominant mood as they managed to complete straight sets victories over Anna Baldoni and Laurence Vada respectively.

In table tennis, the women’s team are in the running for a bronze medal after ending the first day of competition with one win and two defeats.

The promising Jessica Pace grabbed her first win in GSSE competition when she beat San Marino’s Chiara Boffa in a battle of young teenagers while Peng Fei had the better of Letizia Giardi.

Pace and Fei then wrapped up their win with a fine victory in the doubles event. Earlier, they were beaten by Cyprus and Luxembourg in identical 3-1 defeats.

In the men’s tournament, Simon Gerada and Daniel Bajada failed to progress from their group after one win and two defeats.

They started with a 3-1 victory over Iceland but then went down to Montenegro 3-2 and Cyprus 3-0.

Cycling upset

In yesterday’s cycling 108km road race, Team Malta lagged behind and were never among the front-runners in Ruggell.

Maurice Formosa was the first of the Maltese riders home when he finished 21st in 2:39.06.

He was followed by Etienne Bonello (23rd), David Galea (24th) and Jason Vella (27th).

In all, 30 riders started the race.

The gold medal was won by Luxembourg rider Bob Jungels who completed the distance in 2 hours 36 minutes and 26 seconds.

Liechtenstein’s Stefan Kueng took silver in 2:38.35 and Pit Schlechter, of Luxembourg, finished a fraction of a second behind for third place.

Meanwhile, in beach volley, Alison Borg and Gertrude Zarb were off to a flier when they won their preliminary round match against Andorra 2-0 (21-13, 21-8).

Today, Borg and Zarb face gold medal favourites Luxembourg at the Weiherring Mauren arena.

Yesterday, Luxembourg beat Monaco 2-0 (21-13, 21-13).