On the last day or rather on the fourteenth day of the European Snooker
Championship in Albufiera, Portugal the highlight was the final of the men’s team category in which one of the finalists were team Malta 1 composed of Aaron Busuttil and Chris Peplow.
In a final that took more than three hours, the Maltese lost the fifth and the decisive frame against Ukraine 1 which was made up of Denys Khmelevskyi and the young Iulian Boiko who is now 19 years old but at 14 years old he became the youngest player ever to become a snooker professional and took part in the World Snooker Tour in the 2020/21 and 2021/22 seasons. During this edition of the European Snooker Championship held in the last days, Boiko also won the shoot-out competition where he eliminated Maltese veteran Alex Borg in the quarter-finals.
During this final the Maltese team won the first frame but the Ukrainians won the two successive frames, with Busuttil and Peplow responding immediately to force the fifth and final frame.
Much of the time during the fifth frame, both teams chose to play defensive style of snooker and when the last three red balls were left on the table Malta 1 reduced the point margin to four. Afterwards Peplow failed to pot one of the last two red balls from a long strike and didn’t defend cue ball appropriately while Khmelevskyi in his successive stroke managed to pot a red from a diffuclt angle. Consequently the Ukrainians took control and with a mini break of 28 points widened the point difference and brought the frame and the match to an end, winning the final with the following scores; 66-53, 25-74, 21-65, 64-19 and 27-64.
After the final, the President of the European Billiards & Snooker Association, Maxime Cassis, made the presentation to the winners with Aaron Busuttil and Chris Peplow awarded the runners up trophies and silver medals for this edition of the European Men’s Team Snooker Championship.
