Simon Gerada and Daniel Bajada combined perfectly yesterday to reach the table tennis doubles final, finishing the day with a worthy runners-up spot after going down to Cyprus in the match for the gold medal.
The Maltese pair, who crashed out of the group phase in the team event on Tuesday, looked a revitalised lot yesterday as they strolled past more quoted opponents, the likes of Montenegro and Luxembourg, to make inroads in a competition where they had started as the clear underdogs.
Also yesterday, Peng Fei Li and Jessica Pace collected their second bronze medal of the Games when they beat Monaco in a decisive match from the round-robin competition for women to finish third overall.
Gerada and Bajada were in a class of their own in the group phase.
They opened up with a clear-cut 3-0 win over Monaco and then showed great recovery skills to come back from 1-2 down to beat the highly-rated Montenegro 3-2.
The Maltese pair then wrapped up their commitments with a 3-1 win over San Marino to top the qualifying group on maximum points.
Gold medal contenders Luxembourg were up next for Gerada and Bajada in the semi-finals but they were not overawed by the occasion and cruised to an astounding 3-0 win amid the scenes of joy in the Maltese clan at Dreifachturnhalle, in Triesen.
In the final, Marios Yiangou and Ognyan Serafimov won the first set but had to stave off a mighty challenge from Gerada and the young Bajada in the next two sets which narrowly went Cyprus’s way 12-10 and 14-10, for Malta to concede a 3-0 defeat.
Gerada said the upset in the final was too hard to fathom.
“Coming so close to winning a gold medal makes it hard to accept this defeat,” the 30-year-old said.
“We were close to get back into the match but missed the second and third set in a close deuce. All in all, however, we should be pleased with our efforts as both of us did better than expected.
“Daniel is such a talented lad and I felt very comfortable play-ing with him. There’s huge potential in this player and he can continue to progress. Now we must retain the same kind of form for the singles events.”
Bajada was visibly emotional to have secured his first GSSE medal.
“I joined the team with modest aspirations so this medal was totally unexpected,” the Malta champion said.
“It never crossed my mind that I could team up in doubles and challenge for a medal, let alone gold. Simon is such an inspiration.
“The other teams were strong but we did manage to beat most of them here.”
Meanwhile, Peng and Pace lost their matches to Luxembourg, the eventual gold medallists, and runners-up Cyprus, but then had the better of San Marino, 3-0, to set up a bronze medal showdown with Monaco.
This was the second time that the two teams were facing each other in a decisive match for a place on the podium.
On Wednesday, Peng and Pace had the better of the Monaco girls to claim bronze in the team event.
Yesterday, the Malta pair under-lined their superiority over the same opponents in another 3-0 win to clinch another third place.