Malta started the defence of their title with a heavy defeat against Luxembourg yesterday afternoon.

It was a generally poor performance by the Maltese girls who were just a shadow of their usual selves, especially after the form they had showed in winning the gold medal in Malta two years ago.

Yet, it was in the third and fourth sessions that the Maltese girls collapsed as Luxembourg appeared to be a superior outfit.

In the first session, Malta were leading 8-7 and they kept up the good work midway through the second session as they took a 13-11 lead, but Luxembourg fought back to recover the deficit and even go ahead 22-18 by the interval.

At the start of the third session, our opponents quickly increased their lead to seven points (27-20), and from then on they took complete command scoring another 20 points to Malta’s three to end the session leading 47-23.

With the match won and lost, the final session was just a formality, even if Malta seemed to improve a little in the opening stages. By the end, however, Luxembourg again were in command as they went on to increase their lead to 63-37 for a comfortable victory.

Malta: Rachel Camilleri 6, Dorianne Galea 5, Sandra Schembri Wismayer 7, Alexis Darmanin 1, Annie Jetcheva 2, Doreen Parnis 2, Kirsten Micallef 6, Marleen Troost 0, Josephine Grima 7, Caroline Fenech 1.

Italian coach Professor Santino Coppa said after the match he was not surprised that Malta had lost the match. “I had forecast a difficult time here in Andorra. It seems as if we have lost two years concentrating on the gold medal we won in Malta. We missed a lot of points in the opening two sessions when I think we sould have changed sides leading by 10 points. Yet, I must admit Luxembourg were stronger and a better side and deserved their victory. Now we have another difficult match against Iceland which I also think we will find hard to overcome," he said.