Malta beaten by Ukraine in European Team Snooker Championship final

Malta 1, formed by Aaron Busuttil and Chris Peplow, just came up short against Ukrainian duo Denys Khmelevskyi and Iulian Boiko in the final of the European Team Snooker Championship in Albufiera, Portugal.

The Maltese duo battled hard in a three-hour contest but in the end, they lost the decider to lolse the match 3-2.

The Ukrainians showed nerves of steel and outwitted the Maltese duo in a nervy encounter with Khmelevskyi and young Iulian Boiko who showed a lot of promise.

Boiko is a promising young player who at 14 years of age was the youngest player to become a professional snooker player and played in World Snooker Tour in 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons.

During this edition of the European Snooker Championship held in the last few days, Boiko also won the shoot-out competition, eliminating 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 properly.

 Khmelevskyi, in his next stroke, managed to pot a red from a difficult angle. From then on, the Ukrainians never looked back. 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.