This year’s first official national Knock-Out competition was held at the National Pool Centre in Msida.

Competing in the ‘A’ event were the majority of the top ranked local players, among them Mark Lupi, Ivan Balzan, Karl Grech Orr and Stephen Rizzo. These top seeds had to battle it out against up and coming players like Nigel Dunkerley, Robert Sultana, Karl Camilleri and Anthony Schembri in what proved to be many an exciting game.

Following sweat and tears the remaining two finalists in the ‘A’ event were Mark Lupi and Ivan Balzan. Mark easily swept all before him in fantastic style to reach the final and seemed to be on fire.

However the final match came to an abrupt end in the second game, when Mark had to concede the match and game with a pulled hamstring. This was very disappointing for both the spectators and Mark who was looking to start 2008 with yet another national Knock-Out title under his belt.

In the Plate event, Nigel Dunkerley beat Robert Sultana in another exciting final. Robert literally left his mark on the court whilst diving to retrieve some deep and very well placed balls by Nigel.

Nigel in the meantime has once again showed that he is hot on the heels of the top ranked players.

The ‘B’ event players had their fans shifting from one court to the other depending on where the players they were supporting were playing.

Amongst the ‘new’ players was Matthew Borg who showed a lot of potential and went on to win the plate. Another player new to Malta Squash tournaments was Sandro Zammit who was beaten in the final by Alex Scerri. All three players showed great skill and speed and will doubtlessly be soon be playing in the ‘A’ event.

The winners were presented with vouchers from MaltaSportsOnline.com the leading local online squash supplier.

Malta Squash thanked the sponsors of the event who were Unsquashable, MaltaSportsOnline and Hi-Tec.