Morena will hit the Beogradska Arena in Belgrade today for her second rehearsal at noon which will establish whether her popularity ratings will continue to shift upwards.

Although her song Vodka, written by Gerard James Borg and composed by Philip Vella, is not being touted among the top three songs, Morena has inched her way into 10th position in her group, according to a poll conducted among the media in Serbia.

According to the esctoday.com website, which is encouraging fans to vote for their favourite entry, Morena is in fifth place. Though all this is heartening, bookmakers are not so enthusiastic and William Hill is placing Malta in 13th place with odds of 33/1.

For Malta to take part in the final of the Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday, Morena must place among the top 10 from the 19 countries competing in her group during Thursday's semi-final.

Whatever the outcome, the confident 24-year-old beauty from Gozo is a hit wherever she goes and was chosen together with two other contestants - Kalomira from Greece and Charlotte Perrelli from Sweden - to pose for a photo shoot for a daily tabloid, Alo!

Yesterday afternoon, she was whisked from her hotel room to the offices of Alo!, which chose the three prettiest girls from the Eurovision contestants for this photo shoot.

All the girls were shot wrapped in their national flag, while for the second photo Morena chose to wear a long, red flowing dress.

A Maltese news website created a stir at the press centre in Serbia, after it uploaded an article saying the girls were going to pose naked, wearing only their national flag. However, this was denied by all the delegations.

Since she arrived in Serbia with the Maltasong delegation on Tuesday, Morena has been leading a frantic existence. Apart from rehearsing her moves for two hours a day with her four Swedish dancers, and backing vocalist Annabelle Debono, she has been receiving invitations from several delegations to sing.

On Friday, Morena sang at the Greek and Cypriot party and was even invited to a city in Serbia, Sabac, to perform at an open-air concert. This locality considers Malta and Macedonia to be their favourite entries, and the concert was attended by a huge crowd who chanted "Malta, Malta!"

Meanwhile, last night she was invited to perform at a party thrown by Ukraine. Last year's popular contestant, Verka Serduchka, has flown in to Serbia to attend the party and lend her support to Ani Lorak, who is this year representing Ukraine.

Morena performed at about 11 p.m. and then it was off to bed to catch up on some sleep before today's rehearsal.

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