Malta 1's bid to regain the European Championship crown got off to a steady start yesterday when the team composed of Alex Borg, Duncan Bezzina and Simon Zammit won their opening two matches from Group A.

Malta 1, one of three local teams in the championships, had the better of Austria (Sebastian Hainzl, Paul Schopf and Zi Kim Chau) 10-4 at the Dolmen Hotel, Qawra, to chalk up their first points in the qualifying phase.

Later in the evening, Malta 1 had the better of Russia 10-2 to make it two wins from two matches.

Last year, Malta 1 were eliminated from the championships at the semi-finals stage by eventual winners Wales.

Lee Walker, Elfed Evans and Peter Roscoe are again in the Welsh team to defend the title won in St Petersburg after beating Ireland 10-9 in the final. Wales also took off with a flyer after trouncing Russia 10-1 in the morning session.

Clayton Castaldi, Simon Camilleri and Mark Saffrett, the trio forming Malta 2, also had a promising start in Group B when they beat Finland (Mike Karhu, Anti Silvo and Veikko Hanula) 10-3 in their opening match.

Castaldi had a break of 81 during one his frames against the Finns.

And the fine run continued with Malta 3's success at the expense of France in an afternoon match. Duncan Pisani, Philip Ciantar and Marius Gatt won the decisive frames to clinch a hard-fought 10-8 win.

In the Masters tournament, also being played at the Dolmen Hotel, Arthur Cachia and Frans Mintoff combined perfectly to beat Israel 4-0.

However, Malta 2 (Tony Mifsud and Ivan Rizzo) started their commitments on a bad footing when going down 4-2 to Germany.