International badminton recently made a welcome return to the local sports scene with the fourth Malta International Youth Tournament at St Martin's College.

The tournament featured young players from two foreign countries. In addition to the Maltese junior squad, the event also saw the participation of Hurlford Badminton Club, from Scotland, as well as Whiteabbey, of Northern Ireland. A team from Sicily cancelled its participation at the eleventh hour. They were replaced by a second Maltese squad.

Malta 1, coached by Norman Spiteri, was made up of Maria Borg, Fiorella Farrugia, Christopher Spiteri, Edmond De Giovanni, Daniel Baldacchino and Adrian Chetcuti.

The tournament took off with the teams' competition. Each fixture consisted of five games - men's and ladies' singles, men's and ladies' doubles and mixed doubles.

Whiteabbey were undefeated in all their matches. They were followed in the standings by Malta 1 whose only defeat was at the hands of the tournament winners with three of the five games in the fixture being lost in the third set. Hurlford were third and Malta 2 fourth.

The second day was reserved for the singles events.

The Northern Ireland players equally left their mark on this competition as Jim Brennan and Grant Gardiner, contested the men's final which Brennan won 15-10, 15-8.

In the ladies' event, Maria Borg played Kellie O'Flynn in the final. The Whiteabbey girl won the title with an 11-4 11-4 scoreline.

The Badminton Association in a short statement expressed their satisfaction at the positive result obtained by the locals and added that such events served to further strengthen the existing good relations between Maltese, Scottish and Irish badminton organisations.

The association also thanked Janatha Stubbs, Deutschland Mini-bus Services and St Martin's College for their support.