It is certain that Jake Castaldi will remember his first experience during a European Junior Snooker Championship since for the second time this week in Antalya, Turkey he managed to reach the last sixteen stage, this time in the under 18 category.
On Thursday, the first challenge for Castaldi was the last 32 round match when he played against Tyler McCaffrey-Smith from Wales. McCaffrey-Smith won the first frame but Castaldi not only equalised but won three consecutive frames to win the encounter 3-1 and qualify with the last 16. In this game the frame scores finished; 12-60, 63-22, 79-42, 57-6.
The story was totally different in the round of last 16 when Castaldi was drawn against Krzysztof Czapnik of Poland who two days ago was the finalist of the under 16 competition. The Polish was far superior to Castaldi and won without much difficulty 3-0, with the frames ending; 12-60, 34-68, 3-56.
On Friday starts the last competition during this European Junior Championship and is open to under 21 category. Here the Maltese youngsters who will participate in this competition are Matthias Debono, Chaylon Castaldi, Xavier Rizzo, Jake Castaldi and Caiden Casha. A total of 89 players will take part and are divided into 22 groups.
All the group phase matches will be played over two days. On the first day the Maltese players have to play twice while on Saturday, Matthias Debono, Chaylon Castaldi, Xavier Rizzo and Jake Castaldi will be involved in their final game while Caiden Casha plays twice as he was drawn in a group of five.
