European Snooker Championship - Albufiera 2024: Philip Ciantar and Alex Borg qualify for the knock out phase

During the second day of the European Snooker Men’s Individual Masters Championship taking place in Albufiera, Portugal, the group phase matches continued and Malta achieved four victories from ten matches in which the six Maltese players were competing. 

Philip Ciantar continued with another two, 3-0, imposing victories and apart from qualifying, he won Group R without losing a single frame. In the morning he won against Andrej Maksimov of Lithuania (57-22, 77-48, 64-25) and late in the evening he beat the Finnish, Ville Pirilä (59-34, 65-32, 59-18) with the same score.

Alex Borg won his second match in Group J and practically he will be one of the 45 players who next Monday play in the knock out phase. He won, 3-1 against the German, Miro Popovic with the scores of the frames being 62-35, 31-79, 74-51, 65-55. On Saturday, Borg will play against the Scotsman, Gary Thomson that will determine the winner of their group.

From the other Maltese players, only Arthur Cachia managed register a win from his two matches. He beat the Dutchman, Dennis Van Der Zee, 3-2, (20-63, 73-23, 71-72, 69-15, 60-29) but later in the evening lost against Māris Volajs of Latvia.

In the other matches David Zammit lost against the Dutchman, Joris Maa. Ivan Attard suffered defeats against Hans Nirnberger of Austria and Gregory Cooke of Northern Ireland while Frans Mintoff, in the morning lost against the Irishman, Brendan O’Donoghue and later in the afternoon, during a game that lasted more than three hours, he was unlucky to lose the last black ball in the decisive frame against the Scotsman, Michael Philbin.

The fixtures for the Maltese players on the third day that will close the group games phase are the following, indicated is the local time: