Seventy-six junior players hailing from 17 European countries took part in the VLTC Kettle Chips European Junior tournament organised by the Vittoriosa Lawn Tennis Club in collaboration with the Malta Tennis Federation.

This tournament took place recently and was a Category 3 tournament under the Tennis Europe Under 14 Tour.

The tournament witnessed a week of high quality and entertaining tennis.

A strong contingent of 27 players from Italy left their mark on this tournament, emerging winners in most of the events held. The tournament also served as valuable experience to local junior players to compete against some of Europe’s highly skilled and aspiring junior tennis players.

The boys’ singles event was won by the tournament’s second seed, Antonio Massara (Tennis Europe rank 150), who defeated his compatriot Simone Trovato 7-5 6-2 in the final.

In the girls singles final, top seed Ipek Soylu from Turkey defeated Jasmin Jebawy from Germany in a tightly fought encounter 7-5, 6-3.

The boys’ doubles event was won by Camillo Lucchese/Antonio Massara who defeated Gianmarco Saccone/Christian Carli in the final with a 6-1, 6-3 scoreline.

The girls’ doubles event was won by Italian pair Veronica Napolitano/Arianna Tricarico, who defeated Ipek Soylu/Yagmur Akgul from Turkey 6-2, 6-2.

The Boys Consolation event was won by Vladislav Yanchenko (Ukraine) with Peter Bothwell (Ireland) finishing runner up.

The final of the Girls’ Consolation event was another keenly contested encounter in which Ivanka Karmalak of Russia beat Lyvia Hollosy of Hungary.

Two Maltese boys, Raphael Sammut and Matthew Cassar Torregiani, gave a good account of themselves passing on to the second round. Unfortunately. the Maltese girls did not fare very well, all being eliminated in the first round.

Trophies were presented by Mark Schembri, a representative of Kettle Chips in Malta, himself a former local tennis champion.

Also present were chairman Paul Micallef and Dr David Farrugia Sacco, President of the MTF.

The VLTC Committee thanked the Malta Tennis Federation and the tournament’s official sponsors Kettle Chips for their support, as well as Farsons plc. for providing San Michel Table Water to the players during the tournament.

Thanks also went to Tennis Club Kordin for making available their facilities for practice sessions during the course of the tournament.