After the great success in hosting the World School’s Championships last year, the Malta Table Tennis Association, in collaboration with the Malta School Sports Federation (MSSF), was given the go ahead to host a higher ranking tournament by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF).
For the first time, Malta is being put on the calendar of ITTF events by hosting a Junior Circuit event.
Eighteen countries are taking part with strong teams coming from Italy, Tunisia, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain and Slovakia, while smaller teams are coming from as far as New Zealand and South Africa. In all over 120 athletes and delegates are taking part which for such events is considered a huge success by the ITTF.
In this international tournament, Malta has three junior boys’ teams, four Cadet boys’ teams and one Cadet girl, totalling 17 players backed up by four coaches.
The following is the full list of Maltese players and coaches:
Junior Boys: Daniel Bajada, Alex Vella Fondacaro, Daniel Kevan, Steve Bugeja, Mario Gambina, Andrew Claudio, Paul Dawson, Daniel Portelli
Cadet Boys: Andrea Portelli, Dario Portelli, Marcus Portelli, Ryan Tabone, Luca Andrea Minuti, Stefan Agius, Keith Vanhear, Mark Ebejer, James Camilleri, James Zammit.
The girl is Jessica Pace.
The coaches are Anastasi, Azzopardi, Genovese and Tufigno.
This augurs well for the future of Table Tennis in Malta with high standards of participation from all over the world and through this Junior Circuit, the ITTF wants to promote the game both with small countries and in the Mediterranean region.
The Malta Table Tennis Association invited 14 international umpires from all over Europe who, with 18 other Maltese umpires, under Chief Malta international umpires Alan Alden and Mark Zammit, ITTF Technical Council representative Johanna Grech and international referee Andreas Giorgiou from Cyprus, will be in charge of a ten-hour programme of games daily between today and Sunday at the Cottonera Sports Complex.
All this has been made possible thanks to the great collaboration of the Kunsill Malti ghall-Isports, The Good Causes Fund committee and the association’s two main sponsors who have already sponsored last year’s tournament - MRGC and General Soft Drinks with their water brand Kristal.