The reigning Snooker champion, Aaron Busuttil together with the veteran Alex Borg will be the two Maltese players who will represent our country during the World Snooker Championship which will start tomorrow, Saturday, in Golem, Albania. This Championship is being organized by the World Snooker Federation and will be played on an open format. There were a total of 211 registrations from which one player withdrew his participation.
Along with Malta there are 38 participating countries while the largest amount of players from the same country will be from England, with a total of 61 players. In the first phase, the group phase which is played on a round robin format, the players were divided into 43 different groups. Aaron Busuttil drew in Group A while Alex Borg is assigned in Group C but both Maltese players are in a group which hold a total of five players.
They will both start their engagements tomorrow. Aaron Busuttil plays against Thailand’s Nattanapong Chaikul while Alex Borg meets Seán King from Ireland. In this first phase the matches are to be played from best of five frames.
On Sunday, only Alex Borg plays and his opponent will be the Romanian Cristian Surdea while he closes the group games in the successive days against Fatosh Dervishaj of Albania and the Englishman, Connor Benzey respectively.
After tomorrow’s game Aaron Busuttil continue with his fixtures between Monday and Wednesday and his opponents will be the Belgian, Pechenart Olivier, the Englishman, Chae Ross and closes the first phase against Muhammad Awais from Pakistan.
From each group two players will qualify for the knock out stage that comes to an end with the final which will take place on Sunday, 11 February. The winner of this championship, apart from the prize money, will also earn a two-year professional World Snooker Tour card from the start of the 2024/25 season.
