Simon Gerada maintains positive run; William Chetcuti in action today Malta’s Francis Vella and Leonard Callus missed the bronze medal as they narrowly lost their deciding match against hosts Australia 1-5-0.5.

In yesterday’s match, Australia won the first set 9-5. In the second set, it was 7-7 and therefore, the hosts took the bronze.

It was an agonising defeat for the Maltese pair, who did very well to reach this stage, although, according to reports from Australia, they were also very unlucky not to have reached the final when they lost to Scotland in the semi-final.

In fact, this is a description of the match on the official website of the Commonwealth Games.

“The Scottish Men’s Pairs had a tough battle against Malta before securing their place in the final.

Having watched their compatriots qualify for the Women’s Final earlier in the day, they steadied when Malta forced them into a shock tie-breaker.

All had seemed regulation for the Scots when they led 7-4 in the second with two ends to play. But the Maltese pair of Len Callus and Frank Vella played superb backs-to-the-wall bowls to score the necessary four shots to force a tie-breaker.

With the last bowl of the tie-breaker’s first end, the Scots had another fright when Malta clipped the jack only to see it rest next to another Scottish bowl.

It was key to the success of Paul Foster and Alec Marshall, with a perfect record of having played seven and won seven and a final to come against England.”

In the singles competition, Shaun Parnis also registered another victory – his third in four matches. Yesterday he beat Mia Tuteru of Cook Islands 2-0 (18-4, 14-4). Today he will be facing Caucau Turagabeci of Fiji in his final qualifier.

Malta’s No. 1 table-tennis player maintained his positive run at the Commonwealth Games yesterday as he registered his second consecutive win in the qualifying rounds.

He also teamed up with his brother Wayne to win Round of 32 men’s doubles match to make it a perfect start in this edition of the Games.

In the Singles, he beat Gordon Mok of Vanuatu 4-0 (11-2, 11-3, 11-1, 11-1). The results clearly show his superiority over his opponent. In the first qualifying round he had beaten Tuvalu’s Napetari Tioti 4-0.

In the doubles, he and Wayne also showed superiority over Ghana’s Akonor and Ali but lost a set in a 3-1 win.

They won the opening two sets 12-10, 12-10, but then lost the third set 12-7, before clinching their passage into the next round by winning the final set 12-10 for an overall 3-1 win.

Simon Gerada will again be in action today in the Men’s Singles competition.

In the Shooting field, Frans Pace finished in joint 20th place among the field of 41 shooters in the trap competition.

In the last three rounds, he had scores of 20, 23 and 23 for a grand total of 111, five clays adrift of a place in the barrage.

Malta’s other competitor in the trap competition, Stanley Cardona, finished in 30th place with a grand total of 100. In the last three rounds, he hit 17, 22 and 22.

In this competition, the gold was won by India’s Manavjit Singh Sandhu who had a grand total of 122.

Adam Vella, of Maltese origin, but representing Australia, finished in joint ninth place with a grand total of 115.

All eyes will be focused on young shooter William Chetcuti today as he will be in action in the Men’s Double Trap competition, together with Rodney Micallef.

There are high hopes that Chetcuti will again be on the podium this year, after having won the bronze medal in Manchester four years ago.

In the team competition, Chetcuti showed good form although his excellent score of 97/100 was not enough to secure Malta a medal, as he and Micallef finished fourth.

The basketball women’s team ended their commitments with another narrow defeat against Malaysia – the second against them in three days. Yesterday the Maltese lost 63-59. Session scores were 14-11, 12-19, 21-14, 12-19.

As the scores indicate it was a close match with Malta taking a first session lead, but at the interval, it was Malaysia who led 30-26. In the third session, Malta recovered and even led 47-44, but in the final session, the Malaysians were in command as they reversed the result in their favour, winning the final session with a seven-point difference: 19-12.

Once again, Josephine Grima was the best player on court scoring 22 points for Malta, while Lucienne Bezzina scored 15 points. The other points came from Bever Lee Anne Zammit 12, Kristen Fae Micallef 4, Sandra Schembri Wismayer 3, Doreen Parnis 2 and Rachel Camilleri 1.