Convincing victories for Alex Borg and Philip Ciantar at European Snooker Masters Championships

The European Men’s Snooker Masters Individual Championship kicked off on Thursday at Albufiera, Portugal and the Maltese players achieved two convincing victories of 3-0 and two identical defeats of 3-1.

The Maltese veteran, Alex Borg was supposed to start his engagements first against the Austrian, Bernhard Wallner but the latter withdrew from the competition.

Borg still had another game later and managed to secure a very comfortable 3-0 victory against the Hungarian, Balázs Csurgó, with frame scores of 75-11, 68-46, 82-42.

Philip Ciantar, in his first game had a commanding 3-0 victory and gave little chance for his opponent Francisco Rodriguez of Spain to accumulate points. He won all three frames with a score of 60-38, 65-15, 67-12.

The other two Maltese players who played on the first day were Arthur Cachia and later David Zammit.

Cachia lost against the Frenchman, Jérôme Chatet 3-1 while Zammit lost with the same score against the former English professional player, Craig Steadman who in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina this year had lost in the final of the Men’s European Individual Championship after defeating Brian Cini in the semi-final.

Every Maltese player has at least one fixture on Friday, the second day of competition.

Frans Mintoff and Ivan Attard enter the action but together with Philip Ciantar and Arthur Cachia have to play two games on the same day.

Both Ciantar and Cachia end their group stage engagements.