Tennis pair Cassar and Jetcheva in hunt for gold
Beach volleyball girls reach last four
Kim Cassar and Elena Jetcheva are in contention to win a gold medal in the women’s tennis doubles after easing past Iceland’s Sandra Kristjandottir and Iris Staub 6-1, 6-2 yesterday.
In the final, Cassar and Jetcheva will face top seeds Stephanie Vogt and Kathinka Von Deichman. The Liechtensteiners crushed Cypriot duo Mara Argyriou and Ioanna Savva 6-1, 6-0 in the other semi-final.
In the men’s doubles, Matthew Asciak and Nick Camilleri failed to emulate their female counterparts as they were beaten in the semi-finals by Monaco duo Guillame Couillard and Thomas Oger 6-1, 6-3.
Cassar and Jetcheva will return home with at least a silver medal but Asciak and Camilleri will have to settle for bronze.
Qualification to the final by Cassar and Jetcheva partially made up for the huge disappointment in the singles tournaments where all our players lost in the quarter-finals and slipped out of medal contention.
Cassar, the second seed, was second best to Cyprus’s Argyriou 6-4 6-2 as Jetcheva lost to the women’s top seed and home player Vogt 6-3, 6-3.
Camilleri found the going tough against Monaco’s Benjamin Balleret who won the match 6-1, 6-3 while Asciak’s run was ended by Stefano Galvani, of San Marino, 6-2, 6-2.
In beach volleyball, Alison Borg and Gertrude Zarb moved a step closer towards winning our first medal ever in this sport when they reached the semi-finals following a 2-1 win over Monaco to finish second in the qualifying group.
The result takes added significance when one considers that the Monaco girls had won silver in the previous Games in 2009.
Today, Zarb and Borg will face Cyprus with a place in the final at stake. The two losing semi-finalists will figure in a play-off for third place.
Judokas pull out
Malta was absent from the judo competition for teams at the Eschen gymnasium yesterday after Jeremy Saywell and Brent Law opted to pull out.
Chef-de-mission Mark Cutajar told The Times that the decision was taken jointly by the federation and the MOC as the Maltese judokas had little chance of making progress with heavier opponents involved in the bouts.
They would have risked serious injury had they taken part, Cutajar added.
The women’s team were also forced to pull out following the elbow injury suffered by Marcon Bezzina on Tuesday.