Malta’s chances of reaching the quarter-finals of the snooker World Cup suffered a huge dent  as Alex Borg and Duncan Bezzina suffered a comprehensive 4-1 defeat to Switzerland in Wuxi, China, yesterday.

The Maltese duo needed beat the Swiss pair of Darren Paris and Alex Ursenbacher to keep alive of snatching second spot from the group from Iran and Australia.

But the Maltese could not have the better of the Swiss pair, despite posting a 105 break in the second frame as Paris and Ursenbacher won the last three frames of the match to leave Borg and Bezzina on the brink of elimination.

English pair of Judd Trump and Barry Hawkins sealed their place in the quarter-finals with a 5-0 thrashing of Pakistan to seal top spot on 18 points.

Iran beat Australia 4-1 to move level with the Aussies in second spot on 11 with Malta still with an outside chance in fourth place on eight points.

To reach the last eight, Borg and Bezzina must not only beat Iran today but they must at least win four frames and at the same time hope that Australia suffer a 5-0 defeat to group winners England.

Elsewhere, hosts China A suffered an unexpected 3-2 defeat to Belgium and are now entagled in a three-way battle for a place in the last eight.

Ding Juhui and Liang Wengbo are second on 14 points, one adrift of the Belgian duo of Luca Brecel and Jeff Jacobs, and will reach the knock out stages if they beat third-placed Hong Kong, formed by Marco Fu and Au Chi Wai today.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

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.