Arthur Cachia, successfully managed to win this season’s third open ranking tournament sponsored by Primatel and organised by the Malta Billiards and Snooker Association. He beat the Malta champion Alex Borg 5-2. The final, best of nine frames was played at Peace Band Club, Naxxar and it was officiated by MBSRA’s referee Mike Farrugia.

From the very first frame Arthur Cachia took the initiative and directed the way of play, while Alex Borg could not settle down and never reached his usual standard of play. In fact the result before the break was already 4-0 in favour of Cachia. Arthur played consistently well and compiled several breaks including a 30, 40 and a 64.

After the interval Alex managed to win the next two frames to make the score 4-2. But in the seventh frame Arthur made it 5-2, thus becoming the winner of the tournament.

55 players competed in this tournament and matches were staged in 16 MBSA affiliated clubs around Malta. The next Open ranking tournament, which will be the fourth and the last one for this season is scheduled to start on 7 February.

In the MBSA ranking list, Alex Borg is leading with 4,250 pts followed by Simon Zammit with 3,150, Joe Grech has 3,050, Arthur Cachia has 2,700 and Duncan Bezzina is in fifth place with 2,550 pts.

Meanwhile the second round of the national Snooker championship starts this evening with six matches from the Premier League.