The local Badminton Association recently organised the 34th edition of the Malta national championships, sponsored by EuroSport. More familiarly known as the “Nationals”, these are the major event in the association’s seasonal calendar as they bring together all the top local talents in a unique competition of high-level play.
Since the 27th edition held in 1998, the Badminton Association has re-named this national competition as the “Paddy Stubbs Memorial Championships”, in memory of this well-known philanthropist and sports benefactor.
Played at St. Martin’s College over five days, these championships comprised the traditional five categories: Men’s Singles and Doubles, Ladies’ Singles and Doubles as well as Mixed Doubles.
This year’s Men’s Singles competition was preceded by an initial qualifying round, called the Plate event. Contested by ten players, this platonic title was won by Albert Bezzina who defeated Patrick Cassar 15/12 9/15 15/5 in the final. Bezzina then proceeded to the Main Draw where he faced more seasoned opponents.
The final of the Men’s Singles category was this year contested by twin brothers Robert and Stefan Salomone. The former had the better of Martin Farrugia and of title-holder Aldo Polidano on his way to the final. On his part, Stefan Salomone had to overcome the challenge put forward by Kenneth Vella and veteran Tony Xuereb.
The first set seemed to be going Stefan’s way when he accumulated a healthy 8/3 lead by its halfway stage. However, Robert gradually clawed his way back into the game to first level the partial score at 8-all and then to forge marginally ahead 12/11.
But a late rally saw Stefan first draw level at 12-all and then proceed to score three successive points to take the set 15/12.
The second set initially seemed to follow the pattern of the first one, with Stefan taking an initial 5/1 lead, only for to see his adversary coming back into the game at the halfway stage. However, there was no stopping Stefan from then onwards.
With the partial score at 7/6 in his favour, he scored point after valuable point to lead 12/7 and then proceeded to wrap up the set 15/7 to claim the second national Singles title of his career.
Defending champion Jacqueline De Giovanni and Rachel Attard contested the Ladies’ Singles final.
De Giovanni initially seemed to be running away with the final when she built a positive 9/0 lead in the first set. However, Attard recovered from this initial setback to partially bridge the gap at 7/9.
Nevertheless, De Giovanni promptly regained her composure and proceeded to take the initial set 11/7.
In the second set, a clearly determined De Giovanni left little room to her opponent. After taking an initial 5/0 lead, which Attard managed to partially dampen to 3/5, she went on to take the set 11/4 and claim the fourth consecutive national Singles title in her career.
In the other categories, the Men’s Doubles title was retained by brothers Robert and Stefan Salomone who once again defeated 15/12 15/10 last year’s runners-up Kenneth Vella / Aldo Polidano in the final.
The Ladies’ Doubles title was similarly retained by Catherine Dimech / Jo’Anne Cassar who, in a repeat of last year’s final, once again defeated Rachel Attard / Jacqueline De Giovanni in two clear sets: 15/7 15/9.
The Mixed Doubles title was equally retained by holders Jacqueline De Giovanni / Stefan Salomone who had the better of last year’s runners-up Catherine Dimech / Kenneth Vella in the final with a clear two-set victory: 15/5 15/12.
By taking the Singles, Doubles and Mixed national titles, Stefan Salomone won the first Triple Crown of his career.
A spokesman for the Badminton Association expressed his satisfaction at the standard of play shown by the numerous participants throughout the overall competition. He also expressed the Association’s gratitude to EuroSport and to St. Martin’s College for their cooperation in staging this event.