Palace open squash tournament a success

This year's "Palace" Open tournament, sponsored by the AX Hotel Operations Ltd, was held a few days ago at the Malta Union Club in Sliema.

This year's edition again proved to be a most successful tournament with a very high number of participants. In fact a total of 52 matches and 147 games were played on the Club's two excellent squash courts from 10.00am till 7.00pm on the Saturday.

The level was very high in both the Women's Open and the Men's 'A' category mainly because members of the national teams, who will be playing in the European Team Championships next month, took part.

In the Men's 'A' event Mark Lupi fought off Nigel Dunkerley in the semi-final to meet Gary Nitschke in the final. It was a close final which eventually saw the latter victorious.

In the Mixed 'B' final Karl Magri, who has not played in a tournament for some time, showed that he was still a very strong squash player and defeated David Crane 3-0. A good win for Karl!

A very good turnout was registered in this year's Ladies' Open. It is further proof how popular the "Palace" tournament because there are usually not enough female players to make up a category of their own. Cecilia Mercieca, who has been studying and working in the UK for the past 18 months, showed that she has been training very hard and has not neglected her squash whilst overseas.

She got the better of Sarah DeCesare in her semi-final in what proved an exciting match. On the other hand Johanna Rizzo had an easy ride to the finals; that final saw Johanna defeat Cecilia Mercieca very convincingly 3-0. Johanna is still considered to be one of the top female squash players in Malta.

"Malta Squash" now looks forward to the European Team Championships next month. Will that be another feather in their cap, following the success obtained in the international fora not so long ago?