The Malta Squash national teams have just returned from Hungary where,for the first time, both the Ladies and the Men participated in the Euro Team championships Third Division.

The ladies team, playing without Dianne Desira and Theresa Brousson manage to do extremely well in this high profile tournament. Annabelle Diamantino, Johanna Rizzo and young Colette Sultana (15 years old) won against Russia, Greece without dropping a match and lost narrowly 2-1 against Poland, all matches finishing 3-2 with Annabelle Diamantino winning a hard fought game against a professional world ranked player, Domenika Witkowska.

The ladies finished second in their group and were placed against a very strong Hungarian team in the semifinals. Annabelle was first on Court and lost to a much stronger Hungarian girl, Colette Sultana playing for Malta the first time not as a reserve played a brilliant match against a much older and experienced player and won the game 3-2.

Johanna then lost her game to the Hungarian Number 2.

The final match for third place was against Luxembourg who will be one of Malta’s opponents in the forthcoming GSSE 2011 in June.

Annabelle lost a very close match 3-2 against while Johanna beat her rival Isabelle Juan 3-2 . It was then up to Colette to win the deciding match. Playing her heart out under a lot of pressure, Malta’s young athlete kept her composure and won her game 3-1 to give Malta a deserved third place.

The Men’s team placed sixth - the highest ever placing in similar tournaments played.

Brad Deguara, Daniel Zammit Lewis, Carl Camilleri, Mark Lupi and Nigel Dunkerley won two hard matches against Norway and Croatia to make it to the quarterfinals.

Playing against a strong Russian team, Brad started well easily winning against the Russian opponent.

Daniel, Mark and Carl lost against their respective opponents losing a placing in the top 4 .

Playing for 5th to 8th place, Malta did very well to beat Turkey 3-1 with Nigel narrowly losing 3-2 in his first ever game for Malta.

In the last match, Malta played against Croatia for fifth or sixth place. Brad again beat his opponent 3-0 (Deguara did not lose a single set in this tournament), Daniel Zammit Lewis, at 17 years, played a brilliant match and also won 3-0. Carl Camilleri and Mark Lupi lost both matches 3-0 and it was a tie.

Game points were counted and Malta lost 5th place for a mere 9 points out of 132 .

Coach and team manager Ivan Balzan, together with Malta Squash President Liz Said, expressed their satisfaction for the performance of both teams which augurs well for the Small Nations Games in Liechtenstein where Squash is included in the team and singles events. Malta Squash has also won the bid for the ETC 2012 to be held in Malta next year which will surely be the biggest ever team tournament ever held for squash in Malta.

Malta Squash thanked the Malta Olympic Committee for its financial support to be able to take part in this competition.