Guzi Grech in quarter-finals

Malta has only one player in the last eight of the world championship (time format) as it was Guzi Grech only who qualified yesterday evening at the Dolmen Hotel in Qawra.

The player from Hamrun, the 1997 world champion, eliminated Freddie Soh in the Round of 16 to reach the last eight, while the other Maltese competitor, former world champion Paul Mifsud, bowed out of the event after a defeat at the hands of Alok Kumar.

He is now due to meet Ashok Shandilya in the quarter-finals today.

Earlier, Grech had qualified to the Round of 16 as Group D winner, having won all his three qualifying round matches.

Mifsud had finished second in Group A having won two matches and lost the other.

The remaining four players, Alex Borg, Pullu Grech, Frans Mintoff and Duncan Bezzina all failed to qualify. Borg and Grech finished third in their groups while Mintoff and Bezzina ended up fourth and last in their respective groups.

Geet Sethi, Alok Kumar, Matthew Bolton, Devendra Joshi, Robby Foldvari and Pankaj Advani were the other qualifiers for the quarter-finals.

Sethi of India included two triple century breaks, a 354 and 314, on his way to winning his three group matches while Grech knocked in eight century breaks in a 1834-521 beating of Roy Lattimer of Northern Ireland, helping him on his way to winning the number three slot among the last eight seeds.

Australian Matthew Bolton provided the highlight of the round when he made a magnificent break of 573 against Martin Goodwill of England, on his way to the number five spot.