The brilliant sunshine and the calm weather conditions enhanced the opening day of the San Michel tournament, which is currently being played at TCK.
It is sponsored by Simonds Farsons Cisk through their product San Michel Table Water,
The six captains seem to have done their homework well and used different tactics for the day’s encounter. A few of them presented their best formations while others rested their best players in preparation for more difficult matches. It is to be noted that all the players in a team must play a certain number of matches throughout the tournament depending on the number of players in their category. The results of most matches were evenly balanced and, as the current standings of the teams show, no team is dominating over the others. This augurs well for a very interesting tournament.
The addition of the ‘Juniors’ Singles’ category added more spice to the competition and was highly welcomed both by the parents of these youngsters and by the many followers of this most popular yearly event at TCK.
After the first day, ‘the current teams’ standing is as follows: - Team ‘A’(D’Alessandro) 13 points; Team ‘D’ (Elden)12; Team ‘F’ (Farrugia) 11; Team ‘E’ (Vella Bonnici) 11; Team ‘B’ (Portelli)10; Team ‘C’ (Vella) 9.
The next encounters will be played on Thursday with the following fixtures:
Team “B” vs Team “E”, Team “C” vs Team “F” and Team “A” vs Team “D”.
U-18 tournament
Three Maltese youngsters through to second round
All three Maltese youngsters made it through to the second round by winning their respective encounters yesterday.
Steffi Sullivan beat her Swedish opponent Wieslander 6-4, 6-1 while Elaine Genovese beat Pashket of the Ukraine 6-0, 6-3. Matthew Asciak was also successful, defeating Marcus Krebs from Sweden 6-0, 6-3.
In the girls’ tournament, No. 1 seed Norma Cavaday from Britain, ranked 335 in the world, beat her Italian opponent 6-1 6-2.
From the seeds, only Maxi Ehmer lost her match to Czech opponent Linhova Susanna.
In the boys tournament, the top seeds had the day off.
In the second round, Asciak will be playing against No. 2 seed Alexei Milner of Israel while Steffi Sullivan will be facing Seed No. 1 from Great Britain Naomi Vavaday. Elaine Genovese is due to meet No. 5 seed Jessica Jackson of Britain.