GLOBAL SNOOKER NEWS

64 players from across Europe gathered in the Dolmen Resort Hotel for the first running of the CISK Mediterranean Cup, organised by the Malta B&SA.

It was a rare opportunity for Europe’s men, ladies and seniors to compete in the same event and the format followed the lines of similar regional events with group play followed by knock out.

The sixteen groups of four players were resolved on a long first day’s play, with the top player from each group progressing to the knock out draw.

Much to the delight of the home fans and organisers it was Malta’s leading player Alex Borg who stormed to victory, beating Scotland’s Robert Stephen 5-1 in the final.

Borg dropped only two frames in the group stages and powered on to the final for the loss of another two frames.

In the semi finals he stormed past England’s Lee Richardson, rattling in the event high break of 133 during the match.

And the final was virtually one way traffic as well. Stephen snatched one frame, but Borg piled on the breaks and romped to victory to huge acclaim from the packed audience.

Prior to defeat by Borg, Lee Richardson had looked in invincible form. He strolled through his group matches, dropping two frames, but emerging as number one seed for the knock out. Along the way he rattled in breaks of 106, 95, 86, 71, 64 and a string of fifty plus efforts.

Belgium’s Kevin van Hove struggled in his group, losing to Malta’s Clayton Castaldi in an untidy match, but he knuckled down to win his remaining matches 3-0 to sneak into the knock out draw. And once there he toughed it out to beat England’s Mark Sutton 3-2, before brushing aside another Englishman, Eddie Cooper 3-0. Robert Stephen, a former European Under 19 champion, ended the Belgian’s run in the semi finals, with a solid 4-2 win.

Stephen was lucky to still be in the draw. During his last 16 match against Gavin Pantall he suffered a frozen shoulder and the match was briefly suspended while he sought some pain killers. They certainly worked, as he recovered from 2-0 behind to edge out the Welshman 3-2 with three breaks over fifty. And he followed that up with a 3-1 win over England’s Ian Bullimore.

Katie Henrick and Reanne Evans struck a blow for the ladies, both winning one match in their groups. Henrick’s victim was Malta’s Peter Tonna whom she beat 3-2, while Evans registered a similar result against David Cortis from Malta.

England’s Alan Trigg led the charge for the old boys network. Wins over Malta’s Simon Zammit, Scotland’s Mark Owens and Israel’s Yakov Yasasvili, with a best break of 99,  took him to the top of his group, but he was soundly beaten in the last sixteen by fellow Englishman Eddie Cooper.

The event was a great warm-up to the European Team Championships to follow and set a buzz across the small island of Malta, ensuring maximum media and public interest for the following week.