Enjoying a light breeze and temperatures in the high 20s Celsius on the Malta regatta course, Batista, defending his lightweight single sculls title, was the outstanding winner in the five heats run in this International Rowing Federation (FISA) event.

Batista, who raced at the senior World Cup earlier this season, began at the back of the field as Greece’s Ninos Nikolaidis dominated the early running in the first heat.

But the Brazilian timed his late challenge perfectly to head the Greek home.

Others to progress included Obbe Durk Tibben of The Netherlands, Dimitri Morselli of Italy, Hugo Buery of France, who produced the fastest time of the day,  

South Africa’s former lightweight double man Nicholas Oberholzer, and Australia’s Sean Murphy, who got the kangaroos waving among his home supporters.

Defending champions Italy made short work of winning their men’s coxed four heat, with Germany following them home for the second automatic qualifying place in the quarter-finals.

The second heat saw a US boat stroked by Viggo Hoite dominate a race where Britain just held off the late challenge for second place from Australia, who now go into the repechage.

Greece and Ireland qualified to contest the lightweight men’s pair final with respective victories over Italy and Germany, while the United States and Denmark did the same in the lightweight men’s quadruple sculls at the expense of Ireland and Spain.

Five heats of men’s single sculls racing saw four from each progress, with notable successes being registered by Austria’s Lukas Reim, Boris Yotov of Bulgaria, Bejamin Davison of the United States,  Canada’s defending champion Trevor Jones and Ireland’s Ronan Byrne, the fastest qualifier.

Australia’s Giorgia Patten and Bronwyn Cox were fastest qualifiers in the women’s pair heats, with Belarus’s Dzina Haluts and Kseniya Ramanouskaya and Regina Salmons and Alina Hagstrom of the United States winning the other heats.

Lucasz Posylajka and Bartosz Modrzynski of Poland were emphatic winners in the men’s pair heats, with other victories being claimed by South Africa’s Charles Brittain and James Mitchell and Andrew Judge and Joseph O’Brien of Australia.

Romania, defending champions in the men’s four, moved into the semi-finals with an impressive win, with the other heats going to New Zealand and Germany.

Britain and Romania qualified to contest the women’s quadruple sculls final.