Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/812895
22 maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 19 APRIL 2017 Sport FORMULA 1 TENNIS Francesca Curmi wins the San Michael Under 18 international tournament FRANCESCA Curmi at 14 years old wins the San Michael Under 18 international tournament held at Tennis Club Kordin, the last Maltese winner of the under 18 in- ternational tournament in Malta was Kimberly Cassar in 2009. Participating in Malta in her first tournaments since January, having sustained an injury during her last tournament, Francesca showed strength and consistency of performance to achieve this positive result in one of her first ITF tournament participations. Francesca started playing tennis at the age of 7 and was coached by Matthew Asciak in Malta un- til the age of 12, Following that, Francesca moved to Belgrade, Ser- bia, where she was training on a full-time basis for 2 and half years with coach Ivan Petkovic at the Haron Tennis Club. During this time she has had the opportunity to participate in numerous local and international tournaments with increasing success. During 2016 she played 56 Ten- nis Europe matches throughout Europe with a 70% win rate and 2 titles and was ranked number 36 in the Tennis Europe Junior rank- ings. Due to a successful 2016, Francesca was also invited to par- ticipate in the under 14 Tennis Europe Masters which brings to- gether the top 8 under 14 players. One of her tournament wins in 2016 was in the "Young Champi- ons Cup" Category 1 tournament which is the biggest and most prestigious international junior tennis tournament in Belgium. Previous participants in this tour- nament include Viktoria Azaren- ka, Kei Nishikori, Juan Martin Del Potro, Stanislas Wawrinka and Marcos Baghdatis. From the second quarter of 2017, Francesca will be coached by Ivana Kubickova together with coaches based in the Czech Republic. In 2017, Francesca will participate in the ITF Junior Tennis Tour aim- ing to steadily move up the ITF junior rankings with the objec- tive of participating in the junior grand slam tournaments in the near future. The Malta Tennis Federation President, Dr David Farrugia sac- co presented the prizes to the win- ners. Whilst congratulating Ten- nis Club Kordin for organizing the high level event he congratulated Francesca Curmi who won the high level event at a young age. The President stated that this was one of the most prestigious results obtained by a Maltese player in a local international event. McLaren suffer more problems with Honda engines MCLAREN'S sorry season took another miserable twist on Tues- day after further problems with their Honda engine contributed to them missing eight hours of testing in Bahrain. While Lewis Hamilton - back in his Mercedes after finishing a disappointing second to title ri- val Sebastian Vettel on Sunday - posted the fastest time, McLaren test driver Oliver Turvey man- aged only two laps before suffer- ing an engine failure. Fernando Alonso, who will be replaced by Jenson Button next month in Monaco as he heads for the Indianapolis 500, public- ly berated the lack of pace from his Honda engine throughout Sunday's race before a problem forced him to retire for the third time in as many grands prix this season. An engine issue prevented his team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne from even starting the race. And back at the Sakhir Circuit in Bahrain on Tuesday, Turvey, the 30-year-old from Cumbria, broke down after only two in- stallation laps. A water leak was diagnosed as the problem with Turvey then missing the majority of the day as McLaren replaced the faulty Honda power unit. Turvey returned to the track for the concluding hour and completed a further 15 laps, but he was nearly four seconds adrift of Hamilton's best lap and slow- est of all the 12 times set. Hamilton, now seven points adrift of Vettel in the champi- onship standings, suffered his own breakdown in the opening moments of the test. But the is- sue - which resulted in him stop- ping on track and his car taken back to the Mercedes garage on a pick-up truck - meant he lost only 30 minutes of track action. The Briton racked up nearly 100 laps before setting the best time of the day. Hamilton, who will be replaced by his Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas for the conclud- ing day of the in-season test on Wednesday, finished more than half a second clear of Ferrari test driver Antonio Giovinazzi, with Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo third.