Matthew Abela won a precious bronze medal for Malta in the Men’s Singles event at the Algerian International 2018. This is an International tournament on the BWF (Badminton World Federation) circuit.
Matthew started off very convincingly by beating Algerian, Raoufi Lamrani 21-8, 21-9 in the first round. Franck Ahi, from Cote d’Ivoire, seed no.3 was waiting for Matthew in the second round, an encounter which on paper was not easy, however Matthew rose to the occasion and had a consistent game and managed to beat his opponent 21-9, 21-7. This win progressed Matthew to the quarterfinals where he showcased another solid win against another Algerian player Samy Khalid 21-16, 21-11. The semi-final was a tough call for Matthew and even though he produced some good and fine badminton against Moroccan Bilal Elharab, Elharab’s experience, had the edge over Matthew and managed to grab a place in the final 21-16, 21-16 and later winning the tournament.
This was an overall good experience for Abela and for badminton in Malta, where winning a bronze medal is a very positive result, following the silver and bronze already won by Sam Cassar and Mark Abela at the Algerian Junior International last November.
This marks a very positive run for Matthew as he was just reconfirmed Malta’s National Champion for the third time in a row and is also one of the finalists of Sportmalta’s Awards in the People’s choice category.
Credit Videos & Photo – cngfotography
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