Aaron Busuttil and Chris Peplow maintained their fine form to reach the Last 16 at the European Snooker Championship which is currently being held in Antalya, Turkey.
In the previous day, both Busuttil and Peplow qualified directly to the round of the last 64 since they had won their group but with these latest results, they have now surpassed two more rounds.
In the last 64 round, Aaron Busuttil was up against German player Umut Dikme, who last January had eliminated the Maltese player during the second round of the World Snooker Federation Championship that was held in Morocco.
This time, Busuttil managed to reverse that result and beat Dikme 4-2.
Peplow had a brilliant performance and in three of the frames he won, he compiled breaks of 105, 95 and a clearance of 63 points to win the sixth frame when he was 60 points down. With this victory Busuttil advanced to the round of the last 32.
On paper the opposition to Busuttil in last 32 round seemed somewhat tough as actually his next opponent was the Austrian, Florian Nuesse who a few days ago in the same venue, won one of the three finals of the Q Tour Global Play-Offs where he also won a World Tour Card for two years that promotes him as a professional player for the first time in his career.
This fact did not affect Busuttil, and he managed a 4-0 straight forward victory against the same Austrian, Nuesse.
The Maltese was confident from the start and after scoring a 65-point break in the third frame, he made a stunning fightback in the next frame.
Nuessle had an advantage of 42 points, 63 to 21, but Busuttil replied with a clearance of 47 to come from behind and win the frame 68-63 to seal his place into the last 16.
Chris Peplow, despite reaching the same target, had a slightly different path.
In the last 64 round he beat the Scotsman, Michael Collumb, 4-1. The Maltese always seemed to have the upper hand and in fact won the first three frames.
In the evening, in the round of the last 32 he played against 14-year-old, Matvei Lagodzinschii from Ukraine who to some extent offered more resistance to Peplow.
The Ukrainian youngster lost the first two frames but until the end of the fourth frame he drew level. The Maltese was again superior in the fifth and sixth frame and won 4-2 to secure a place amongst the last 16.
Apart from Busuttil and Peplow there were four other Maltese players who were engaged during the matches that took place on Thursday.
From these Arthur Cachia managed the best performance he won his first game, 3-1, against the Irish, John Sutton but then lost 4-2 against Fergal Quinn of Northern Ireland in the last 64.
In the preliminary matches prior to the last 64 the other three Maltese players were eliminated right away. Brian Cini lost to Sam Thomas of Wales, 3-0, Alex Borg was defeated by Swiss Alain Vergère, 3-1 and Joseph Casha lost with the same score against the Romanian, Mihai Vladu.
On Friday, the penultimate day of championship, the focus will remain on Busuttil and Peplow who play the last 16 round at 8am. Once again, this phase is played on the best of seven frames.
Busuttil will play against the Englishman, Ashley Hugill while Chris Peplow will face another 14-year-old youth. This time the Polish, Michal Szubarczyk who during this edition of the championship won two finals from the Juniors competitions, the under 16 and the under 18.
Busuttil and Peplow this year both have already achieved a better result than last year, since in Sarajevo they were both eliminated in the last 32 round.
