Gianluca Bezzina did the nation proud last night as he earned a place in Saturday’s Eurovision final with a stellar performance of his sunny song Tomorrow.

Although he had admitted to being nervous beforehand, he gave a confident performance characterised by his interaction with the crowd as the lyrics to his song were screened behind him.

The singing doctor was made to sweat as he was announced as the ninth finalist out of 10 which made it through on the night, prompting celebrations in the Malmo Arena and in living rooms across the island.

Loyal Maltese, including world famous tenor Joseph Calleja, took to social media as voting got under way to drum up support for Gianluca’s catchy song, causing #Malta to briefly trend on Twitter.

Back in the arena, Gianluca clutched the national flag as he waited anxiously with his band for the result.

The other qualifiers last night were Hungary, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania, Norway, Iceland, Armenia, Finland and Greece.

They will join another 10 countries which qualified on Tuesday – Moldova, Lithuania, Ireland, Estonia, Belarus, Denmark, Russia, Belgium, Ukraine and the Netherlands.

Automatic qualifiers Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the UK and last year’s winner Sweden complete the line-up for Saturday’s final.