Wetzel, Prokopcov and Bajada take gold in team tournament at GSSE

Felix Wetzel, Dmitrij Prokopcov and Daniel Bajada handed Malta its tenth medal of the Games after they beat Luxembourg 3-1 in the final of the team event.

It was an impressive performance from Wetzel, who led his team-mates to victory as he stepped up his game by a few notches in key moments of the match to propel Team Malta to a tenth gold medal in the Games.

The men’s selection powered into the final with a 3-0 win over San Marino and set up a showdown against Luxembourg.

Wetzel set the team on their way with a 3-0 win over Mael Van Dessel before Prokopcov lost to Luka Mladenovic to leave the tie level at 1-1.

The doubles turned out to be a crucial tie as Wetzel and Prokopcov survived throwing away a two-set lead as they went on to win a tense decider to regain the lead.

There was no stopping Wetzel, who went on to beat Mladenovic and hand Malta its second gold medal in table tennis in Andorra.

The Malta women’s table tennis selection ended their commitments with another silver medal after going down to Luxembourg 3-1 in the final.

It was a disappointing outcome to a title showdown which saw the Maltese battle hard with their more-quoted opponents, but an injury to Carmelia Iacob in the third singles match of the day ended their hopes of glory.

The Maltese duo enjoyed a brisk passage to the final as after winning all their matches in the group stages and then overcoming San Marino in the morning session.

Renata Strbikova was beaten by Sarah De Nutte 3-1 but Maria-Carmelia Iacob levelled the match when she overcame Enisa Sadikovic levelled the game with an identical scoreline.

The doubles turned out to be a ding-dong affair as Malta threw away a 2-1 lead and lose the last two sets 11-6 and hand Luxembourg a 2-1 lead.

Then De Nutte won the first set against Iacob 11-4 and seconds later the Maltese player forfeited the match due to an injury to hand the victory to Luxembourg.

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