Daniel Bajada, Edward Baldacchino and Andrew Gambina recently took part in the World Table Tennis Championships, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Maltese team, led by MTTA president Alex Anastasi, finished with a record of three wins and three defeats.
Bajada, Baldacchino and Gambina steered the country to their first win over Morocco, 3-0, and also beat Libya twice, winning 3-1 and 3-0.
There were 89 teams in the men’s tournament with Malta placing 85th in the final rankings ahead of Libya, Morocco, Congo Democratic and Ghana.
The Chinese teams, boosted by the backing of a 5,000 avid supporters at the Malawati Stadium venue, won both men’s and women’s championships.
Japan had to settle for the runners-up position in both categories.
The tournament again proved to be a success in Asia with organisers reporting an average of 22 million viewers tuning in to CCTV-5 to watch the men’s final between China and Japan.
At least, 60 million watched one minute of the match that China won to retain the title of world champions.