The players have been drawn in two groups with five players in each group. The five players in Group A are Luca Brecel (Belgium), Lior Pinhas (Israel), Maximilian Thurr (Austria), Wayne Pace (Malta) and Bairaq Sabih Salman (Sweden). The five players in Group B are Ryan Clark (England), Angelo Eyckmans (Belgium), Anders Czarnecki (Sweden), Shaun Sultana (Malta) and Alexander Gauss (Austria).
Luca Brecel who is joined by his brilliant coach Danny Moermans and who has already played for Belgium Under 19 National Team is the current European U/17 Snooker Open Champion. In the last few months he managed four maximum 147 breaks during training. Luca`s best competitive break is 99. Other favourites are Ryan Clark who is ranked among the top eight U/16 players in England and the Belgian No2 U/17 player Angelo Eyckmans. Clark`s highest breaks are 100 during a competitive match and 108 in training while Eyckmans highest in competition is 81 and 144 in training. As we have seen during the 1st tournament the level of the players is extremely high. During that 1st Invitational European U/17 Snooker Open Maltese youngster Thurston Grixti did extremely well by finishing in 3rd place.
International referee Raymond Debattista; 14 times Malta National Snooker Champion Alfred Borg and Phil Hartley from England will be the three officials in charge of all the 27 snooker games in the tournament.
The tournament is being sponsored by San Antonio Hotel & Spa, Apple Snooker Club, the Malta Tourism Authority and Bank of Valletta.