Malta’s national Snooker team was eliminated from the European Snooker Championships being played in Belgium.

Yesterday, Malta lost 5-10 against England in the quarter final and again lost to Belgium’s second team 8-10 in the match to determine the final placings between 5th and 8th.

This was a great setback for Malta, who won the European Championships in 2004 and 2005 and reached the semi-finals last year.

Malta can only hope to finish at least in seventh place now.

The Snooker team, made up of Simon Zammit, Duncan Bezzina and Clint Grima registered the following frame scores against England (Malta first):18-81, 0-70, 67-15, 58-57, 59-54, 44-66, 56-62, 38-67, 39-64, 68-60, 75-16, 37-78, 39-67, 44-80, 80-59.

Some consolation though was the Malta Masters team’s win over Belgium’s second team 7-1 to move into the semi-finals of the competition. This was Malta’s fifth consecutive win for Tony Mifsud and Frans Mintoff.