Victories for Borg and Cachia at European Snooker Championship

Ciantar suffers the first defeat

The European Snooker Championship which is being held in Albena, Bulgaria saw all three Maltese players in the Seniors category in action on Tuesday, and out of three games, the Maltese selection managed two victories.

Alex Borg started his championship commitments with a victory against Lee McAllister of Scotland 3-1, with frames scores of 78-72, 9-82, 60-42, and 95-36. In the last frame, he closed the game with a break of 43 points.

Arthur Cachia achieved his second victory and secured his qualification for the knockout stage. Today he won 3-1 against the Lithuanian player Darius Bublys; 49-36, 36-65, 49-10, and 77-7.

Philip Ciantar suffered his first defeat against Khurram Khan of Wales, 3-1. Khan was a bit lucky to have won the first frame although Ciantar immediately managed to level up but the Welsh player won the two successive frames getting the match to an end; 36-69, 87-14, 21-51, and 31-66.

On Wednesday, the group phase will finish and will produce the list of the 32 players qualifying for the first round of the knockout.

The three Maltese players will be playing their final group stage encounter in the first morning’s session at 10 am (9 am Malta time). Borg plays against the Polish, Marcin Bek, Ciantar against Jani Kananen of Finland while Cachia’s opponent will be the Dutchman Joris Maas who has already qualified since, like Cachia, won both matches. Thus from this encounter emerges the group winner.