Maltese players make positive start in Belgium

The 2009 European Snooker Championships got under way yesterday in Duffel, Belgium with more than 140 players from 31 European countries taking part. The championships will come to an end today week with the finals in the three main categories - men,...

The 2009 European Snooker Championships got under way yesterday in Duffel, Belgium with more than 140 players from 31 European countries taking part.

The championships will come to an end today week with the finals in the three main categories - men, women and masters.

Five Maltese players are competing in these championships, three in the men's category and two in the masters.

In the men's event, Malta champion Alex Borg had good runs of 99 and 122 on his way to a 4-0 win over Ukraine's Viacheslav Nezdymovskyi. Clayton Castaldi was a 4-0 winner over Henri Strodis of Lithuania. Tony Drago, who won the International Open earlier this week to regain his place among the world's elite, struggled to beat Belgian Kristof Vermeiren.

Vermeiren managed to come back from 3-0 down to tie the match but Drago kept his cool to produce a fine 90 break and win the deciding frame.

In the masters, Arthur Cachia enjoyed an excellent start as he obtained identical 3-1 wins over Tryggvi Erlingson (Iceland) and Erwin Goethals (Belgium).

Tony Mifsud beat Poland's Slawomir Domanski 3-0 in his opening match.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.