President George Abela this morning phoned Thea Garrett to wish her luck for tonight's big night, where she will vie for a top 10 position in the first Eurovision Song Contest semi-final.
"He said the Maltese were all behind me and that I was in his and his wife's thoughts. He said everything I needed to hear to help to boost my morale on the final morning," a chirpy Thea told timesofmalta.com.
In yesterday evening's second dress rehearsal Thea gave her "best performance yet", head of delegation Joe Dimech said.
And this was just as well, since the juries of each country (which will account for 50% of the votes) will watch a recorded version of last night's dress rehearsal and submit their votes by 4 p.m. today.
"It came straight from the heart and I really enjoyed it. All the excitement I had in the first rehearsal wore off so now I hope that I will be even more relaxed tonight," the Eurovision starlet said this morning as make-up preparations began early in her hotel room.
A third and final dress rehearsal will be held today at 3 p.m. giving singers only a few hours of rest before the actual show which will be held at 9 p.m.
Besides some minor changes in the backdrop that was used on stage, everything is set to remain the same for Malta's performance.
"I am going up with the same product the Maltese and Gozitans voted for," she said.
Thea's dress, the seagull effect, the pyrotechnics and the camera shots all went down well with press audiences, who showered her with praise and applause yesterday.
The whole delegation is now relaxed and confident that they have done their utmost, but they also acknowledge that Thea's fate is still very much in the balance as many of the songs in the semi-final are of a similar standard.
The top favourites to qualify are Belgium, Greece and Iceland.
However, while bookmakers say Slovakia has a great chance, they also say Finland will not qualify, despite the huge response its group of happy white-clad performers are getting in the arena.
Malta is stuck in 13th place according to bookies. Experts have said that one of the major things working against Malta is the fact that there are so many countries from the Eastern part of Europe.
The fear is that political voting would help countries like Russia, Serbia, Moldova, Bosnia Herzegovina, Estonia and the FYR Macedonia, who will all tend to vote for each other.
Malta on the other hand, will not have many ‘friends', since countries like the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Denmark, Sweden and Norway which generally have similar musical tastes and tend to give Malta high scores year after year, are not competing in this semi-final and therefore cannot vote.
Spain, Germany and France will also be able to vote with the 17 countries competing since the big four countries (which includes the UK), and last year's winner Norway, were split up between the two semi-finals this year.
Unlike in previous years, this time people can start voting for their favourite songs as soon as the show begins, so the calculation of the votes should be smoother and faster.