Duncan Bezzina, of 147 Snooker Hall, Hamrun, won the third ranking tournament of the season organised by the Malta Billiards and Snooker Association which came to an end on Friday evening at Jesmond Sporting Club, Hamrun when he beat Alex Borg of Juventutis Domus, Zejtun 6-1 in the final. This was Borg’s first defeat in 16 months in local competitions organised by the MBSA.
Bezzina was in fine form all through the final. Borg started the final with a break of 54 but Bezzina responded with a 66 break to win the first frame. Borg again started with a 43 in the second but it was Bezzina who won it with a 61-51 score.
The next two frames before the interval were shared for a 3-1 score. When play resumed Bezzina continued with his fine potting and with breaks of 42 and 94 won the next three frames for a final score of 6-1.
Frame scores, Bezzina first, breaks in brackets: 66(66)-54(54), 61-51(43), 75(48)-25, 54(42)-61, 70-39, 70-5, 128(94)-4.
The final was controlled by referee Ambrose Licari.
At the end of the match, Joe Caruana Curran, president of the Malta Billiards and Snooker Association presented the trophies to the finalists.
The highest break of the tournament was made by Alex Borg with 122 points.
On the MBSA provisional ranking list, Borg has 3,750 points followed by Duncan Bezzina with 2,750 and Simon Zammit with 2,550 points.
National championships
Meanwhile the national championships continued on Monday with matches from the final stages of all divisions.
In the Premier Division the eight players who qualified from the group stages were again divided into two groups of four players each. Matches will be played on two rounds on home and away basis with the top two placed in each group qualifying into the semi finals.
Group A consists of Alex Borg, Simon Zammit, Clint Grima and Arthur Cachia while Duncan Bezzina, Clayton Castaldi, Mario Brincat and Frans Mintoff form Group B.
In the First, Second, Third, Masters (Over 40), Under 19 and Under 16 divisions the final stages are played on a knock-out basis until the finals.