This year’s World Snooker Championships, organised by the World Snooker Federation (WSF), will be held in Sofia, Bulgaria, from Monday 19 January to Sunday 1 February. The opening five days of the event will feature the Junior Championship, which is open to players under the age of 19.
Malta will be represented by four players in the junior competition. They include two of the country’s most promising young talents, 17-year-old Xavier Rizzo and 14-year-old Caiden Casha. They will be joined by Caiden’s twin brothers, Carl and Craig Casha, who are just nine years old. Along with England’s Tommy Fallon, Carl and Craig will be the youngest players taking part in this year’s championship.
A total of 80 players from 20 different countries have registered for the Junior Championship. Following the draw held on Sunday afternoon, the players were divided into 16 groups of five. The top two players from each group will qualify for the last 32, which will be played in a knockout format.
In the group stage, each player will play four matches. The Maltese players were drawn into the following groups:
Xavier Rizzo will compete in Group L alongside Yashnai Parmar (England), Cristian Mihai Huszti (Romania), Kai Nam Pang (Hong Kong) and Axel Wysoczański (Poland).
Caiden Casha was placed in Group B with Wang Xinzhong (China), Dylan Smith (England), Krzysztof Czapnik (Poland) and Nikita Bazilevics (Latvia).
Carl Casha will play in Group A against Edward Jones (England), Mikayel Nersisyan (Armenia), Christian Richter (Germany) and Jovan Kutlesic (Serbia).
Craig Casha was drawn in Group G together with Ayaan Iqbal (Scotland), Adam Abbas (England), Alexandra Ceruta (Moldova) and Stefan Stachowiak (Poland).
The Maltese group is being accompanied by Joseph Casha, the father of the Casha brothers, who is also a local snooker player and coach.
