European Snooker Championship – Antalya 2025
During the fifth day of the European Snooker Championship being held Turkey, the Maltese snooker contingent has ended their exploit in this edition after the last two remaining contenders, Aaron Busuttil and Chris Peplow, were both eliminated in the last 16 phase.
Aaron Busuttil was eliminated by the Englishman, Ashley Hugill, a former professional player until last year’s World Tour. He had switched professional after winning a tour card for the seasons 2017/18 and 2018/19 but after this period he had been dropped out. His exclusion from the World Tour lasted for a very short time as he won another tour card when finishing as the winner of the Malta 2020 World Snooker Federation Open Championship.
Aaron Busuttil had a good start and won the first frame, but Englishman made an 80-point break in the second frame and immediately equalized. Busuttil regained the advantage, but Hugill showed his great experience especially in the last frame when the Maltese was 56-14 in front. The Maltese failed to pot a red with only two reds remaining on the table. Hugill needed a clearance to overcome Busuttil’s advantage but calmly he carried out a mini break of 43 points to surpass the Maltese with one point. He won the last three frames and closed the match, 4-2 (60-49, 0-80, 72-19, 33-80, 11-78 and 56-57).
Chris Peplow played against the 14-year-old Polish youth, Michal Szubarczyk, who during in the last fortnight in Turkey performed brilliantly and everything indicates that he can run into an outstanding future in this sport. Last week during the Junior championship he won two finals, both the under-16 and the under-18 while reaching the last 16 in the under-21 competition. Peplow, like Busuttil, had a good start and won the first frame, producing also a 51-point break but in the other frames Szubarczyk took every single opportunity when the Maltese failed and won four frames in a row to win, 4-1 (72- 0, 36-69, 9-78, 54-58 and 47-91)
With these two games Malta completed its commitments in this edition. Later this year the European Snooker & Billiards Association organizes the European Masters and Teams Championship that are planned to be held in Albania while it was also announced that Spain will be hosting a 2026 individual championship, like this organized in Antalya, Turkey. This year’s edition comes to an end on Saturday with the two semi-finals and the final.
