This weekend Colette Sultana is taking part in the Irish Junior Open that is being held in Galway.

This will be Sultana’s third European ranking tournament in the Under 17 age group, following her debut in this category in the Dutch Junior Open last Summer.

Colette recently competed in the Belgian Junior Open where once again she achieved very good results, confirming her continuous improvement.

In her first match in Brussels, Sultana won convincingly 11-0, 11-2, 11-2 against Lena Dunableta from France. She then went down 5-11, 6-11, 7-11 to Tereza Svobodova, one of the top-seeded girls of the tournament, and who is a year older than the Maltese 15-year-old.

Colette Sultana bounced back with two excellent wins against another Czech girl, Barbora Krejcova 12-10, 11-7, 11-8, and beating Irish top girl Breanne Flynn 11-8, 11-9, 11-8.

In the final showdown to another higher-ranked player, the Maltese junior champion lost closely to local girl Nikita Brant 9-11, 11-7, 11-6, 9-11, 7-11 to finish 10th overall from 26 participants.

Sultana is currently ranked 35th in Europe but the rankings do not yet take into account her fine performance in Belgium. She will now be aiming for another positive result in Ireland that should see her move up towards a top 20 position in Europe.

Colette Sultana is a member of the MOC Centre of Excellence and is receiving support through the MOC, Malta Squash and the Marsa Sports Club. Colette is sponsored by Wilson and coached by Paul Lake.