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Malta & Poland Top Stroke Play Qualifying at the V Club

Malta have earned the number-one seed for the match play stages of the European Men's Team Shield Championship.

The Maltese team shot two of the three lowest scores of the day to finish with a total of +17, which included a 74 (+2) from John Jr Michallef, and top the leaderboard at the V Club in Lithuania.

Cyprus finished two strokes behind them on +19, while Latvia were three shots further back on +22. Greece earned the fourth seed on +27, and will play hosts, Lithuania, who finished fifth with a total of +30.

The final three teams that qualified for Flight A, who will compete for medals over the next three days, were Liechtenstein (+31), Hungary (+42), and Romania (+57).

The top-eight teams will now go head-to-head, with one foursomes match and two singles matches played in each encounter. The team that wins all three matches in Flight A will be crowned the 2019 European Men's Team Shield Champions. The bottom-three teams will play a round-robin format for final position.

The full leaderboard and Thursday's matches can be found on the championship webpage here.

In the ladies' event, competed for by nine nations this year, Poland are the team to beat. The Polish team earned the number-one seed for the match play by finishing with a total of +9. Bulgaria will be seeded second after posting a total of +26, and alongside Poland, will receive a bye straight into the semi-finals. 

Latvia finished third on +27 and will play hosts, Lithuania, who finished sixth on +42, in round one. Liechtenstein finished fourth with +31, and will face fifth-place finishers, Greece (+41) on Thursday.

The bottom-three, Serbia, Hungary, and Ukraine, will play a round-robin format for final position. 

The lowest score of the day came from home player, Gile Bite Starkute, who was in contention heading into the final day of last week's European Ladies' Amateur Championship. The Lithuanian player carded four birdies and four bogeys to finish with a level-par 72.

The full leaderboard and Thursday's matches can be found on the championship webpage here.