Colette Sultana has done it again. Following the Bronze achieved in the Swiss Open last December she has made it one better by winning Silver in the Under 13 Girls category of the Austrian Junior Open in Vienna on 7-9 March.
In the first round, the young Maltese player was grouped with Kristyna Alexova and Karolina Holinkova, both from the Czech Republic, and with local Austrian player Lisa Kaserer.
Sultana, who was seeded fourth for this tournament, started with comfortable wins over Holinkova and Kaserer scoring 9/4 9/2 9/4 and 9/2 9/0 9/0 against them respectively. These two wins guaranteed Sultana a place in the semi-finals even though she then lost her final group match 6/9 9/2 5/9 2/9 against the tournament top seed Alexova.
In the semi-final Sultana had to be at her best to beat Gabriella Csokasi, the Hungarian champion who is ranked 11th in Europe and who had won the other first round group with relative ease. The first set was very close. The Hungarian took an early four point lead but the Maltese player fought back and won it 9/7. Csokasi came back to take the second set 9/4 and equal the score. But the Maltese 12-year old remained composed and played some great shots to take the next two sets 9/5 9/2 and win the match 3-1 for the place in the coveted final of the Austrian Junior Open.
The final was against Kristyna Alexova again. Sultana started well to win the first set 9/7 but the Czech, who is ranked fourth in Europe, came back strongly to win the next three sets 9/4 9/4 9/2.
The silver medal is an excellent achievement for the Maltese player who continues to advance in the European junior rankings. In fact, with this excellent result Sultana should now make it to a top 12 placing in Europe.
Asked for his comments, coach Paul Lake said that Colette has participated in four international tournaments over the past 12 months and she has consistently improved and performed well. Other European Juniors have the advantage of being able to take part in 12 to 20 good tournaments over the same period. He continued by saying that with the limited tournament experience that Colette can get in Malta an increase in overseas participation is essential to her continual development. Training and practice are important but competition in young athletes plays a major role in their development, he concluded.
The next international tournament for Sultana will be the Italian Junior Open in June which will be her final event in the Under 13 category.
Sultana is one of the junior athletes recently hand-picked by the Malta Olympic Committee Centre of Excellence to receive support under the GO Youth Athlete Scheme.