Tennis duo Francesca Curmi and Elaine Genovese will return home with an historic silver medal around their neck after losing the women’s doubles final against Spanish duo Jessica Bouas Maneiro and Guiomar Maristany Zuleta on Thursday.
The Maltese pair entered Thursday’s final as the underdogs after upsetting tournament top seeds Nuria Brancaccio and Aurora Zantetedeschi 3-6, 7-6, 11-9 in Wednesday’s semi-final.
But Curmi and Genovese found the going tough against the tournament second seeds Maneiro and Zuleta who strolled home to victory 6-3 6-2.
Despite the defeat, Curmi and Genovese can still be proud of their achievement as they managed to earn Malta its first-ever silver medal in tennis at the Mediterranean Games.
For Curmi the silver medal won at the Mediterranean Games caps a memorable month of international competition.
In fact, in the build up to the Games in Oran, Curmi had managed to win back-to-back titles in the ITF Pro tour.
No doubt, the excellent result achieved by Curmi and Genovese will surely inject more self-confidence in the Maltese pairing who will be looking to strike gold in next year’s Games of the Small States of Europe that will be held in Malta at the end of May.
