Squash trio breeze through buttable tennis players eliminated

Brad Hindle Deguara, Diane Desira and Annabelle Olivieri Munroe will play in today’s squash singles tournament semi-finals with the prospect of adding more quality medals to Team Malta’s haul following the two golds at the Squash-house from the men’s and women’s teams on Thursday.

With Joseph Desira forced to withdraw from the tournament as he failed to recover from a shin injury, Hindle Deguara reached the last four after outclassing Iceland’s Robert Fannar Haldorson 3-0.

In today’s semi-finals, Hindle Deguara will play Christian Billard, of Monaco.

Diane Desira had little difficulty in disposing of Christina Vrahimi, of Cyprus, 3-0. Malta’s top seed will face Vaso Karasava Hambides, of Cyprus, today, the last day of the Games.

Olivieri Munroe also had a comfortable passage to the semis when she beat Luxembourg’s Francoise Donven 3-0.

Today she plays against Donven’s compatriot Sandra Denis with the prospect of an all-Malta final to round up a very positive Games for the Maltese squash fraternity here in Vaduz.

Meanwhile, the GSSE technical commission yesterday cleared Malta of any wrongdoing during Thursday’s decisive men’s tournament match against Liechtenstein following a protest lodged by the hosts.

Liechtenstein complained that Malta had infringed the rules in their 3-2 win when fielding Joseph Desira despite the fact that he was unable to play.

But the technical commission found no wrongdoing in Malta’s action and thus the men’s team were confirmed as winners of the tournament.

The host country did not take defeat lightly though and one newspaper also criticised the behaviour of the Maltese team, arguing that they had acted unfairly to win the gold medal.

In an article under the title “Unfair Malta: Only bronze”, Peter von Hans Putzi accused Malta of lack of fair play.

He implied that the Maltese officials knew before the match that Desira was injured but opted to field him just the same not to weaken their squad, a move that would have favoured Liechten-stein who required victory with a wide margin to pip Malta for gold.

Gerada thriller

In table tennis, none of the Maltese players succeeded in reaching the last four of the singles tournaments.

In a group match, Simon Gerada first lost to Luca Bakic, of Montenegro, 3-0 but then had the better of San Marino’s Mattia Berardi.

In the quarter-finals, he was edged out by Gilles Michelly, of Luxembourg, after a five-set thriller.

Gerada’s team-mate, Daniel Bajada, failed to progress from the group stage.

He won his opener against Daniel Toth (Liechtenstein) 3-0 but then suffered back-to-back defeats to Marios Yanou (Cyprus) and Martin Tiso (Monaco).

In women’s singles, young Jessica Pace beat Olafs Magnea, of Iceland, 3-0, but then lost to top seed Lian Ni Xia, of Luxembourg, 3-0. Her run was ended by San Marino no.1 Letizia Giardi who beat the Maltese youngster 3-0.

Pengfei Li also crashed out in the quarter-final stage. She was beaten in straight sets by Sarah De Nutte, of Luxembourg.