The Gatorade Malta Open tournament started on a bad note with games having to be postponed due to the bad weather of last week.

Fortunately, the improvement over the past few days enabled the progress of the tournament with various interesting encounters.

There were no surprises in the first and second rounds of the men's singles.

Number one seed Alex Manojlovic from Serbia & Montenegro went through to the third round after beating Philip Zarb Mizzi 6-2 6-2 in an interesting encounter, while Matthew Debono, Malta's current No. 1 and seed number two in the tournament, also advanced to the third round after a 6-1 7-5 victory over Mark Vella.

Daniel Ceross, the third seed, also had no problems in advancing to the third round with a comfortable 6-0 6-0 win against Malcolm Falzon.

The young Matthew Asciak, seed number four, is the only player to have progressed to the semi-finals. His match against Simon Camilleri was unfortunately marred when Simon's racket suffered string damage and had to play with his second racket for a period of time until it was repaired, though it is evident that Asciak has a bright future and should continue to improve his ranking on the local scene.

Mark Gatt, Predrag Simovic and Clayton Zammit all had good games but now face stiff opponents in the third round.

In the men's doubles, Matthew Debono and Matthew Asciak have won their way into the final and await the outcome of the other semi-final match between Alex Manojlovic/Daniel Ceross against Predrag Simovic/Mark Gatt. This should be an interesting encounter where, although the former pair are favourites on paper, it will be no surprise if the second pair end up going through into the final.