Malta Snooker champion Alex Borg recorded four wins from his opening four matches in the 2005 European Snooker Championships being held in Ostrow, Poland and is almost sure of a place in the last 32 knock-out stage.

Borg was finalist in last year’s championships.

After the demise of his father earlier in the week, Borg arrived in Ostrow just 15 minutes before he was scheduled to play his first match on Friday evening but still managed to beat Jyri Virtanen of Finland 4-2. Frame scores, (Borg first) were: 98(57)-17, 29-64, 68(47)-47, 8-68, 94(60)-0, 67-56.

On Saturday afternoon he won his second match when he beat Gustavo Zito of Italy 4-1. Frame scores were: 70-20, 37-53, 77-40, 119(51, 58)-4, 70-23.

Borg went on to win his third consecutive match against Peter Roscoe of Wales 4-3 and also beat his next opponent Roey Fernandez of Israel yesterday with an identical score.Frame scores: 17-67, 28-60, 83(47)-22, 80-51, 84-13, 25-94, 87(40)-22.

His fifth match was against Sean Gray of Northern Ireland yesterday evening. Today he plays Marius Chira of Romania at 4pm.

Malta’s second player Simon Zammit was also in action on Friday when he beat Douglas Hogan of Switzerland 4-2 with frame scores: 61-36, 72-71, 62-51, 9-59, 18-60, 57-29.

Zammit has now won two out of his opening three matches when earlier in the week he beat Francis Beccera of Gibraltar 4-0 but lost to Stefan Mazrocis of the Netherlands 1-4 and also to Marek Zubrzycki of Poland on Saturday evening 1-4.

Zammit was due to play Kulik Konstantin from Ukraine yesterday evening while today he will play Martin O'Neill of Northern Ireland.

From the seniors tournament, Tony Mifsud has won two matches out of three while Paul Galea has lost his opening two matches.