The Malta Cup, a ranking tournament organised by Snooker Promotions on behalf of the World Snooker Association, is again being held in Malta early next year.

It is being staged at the Portomaso Hilton Conference Centre between January 30 and February 4 with the top professional world players, except for world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan, lined up to take part.

Among them will be Malta’s top professional player, Tony Drago.The Valletta-born player, however, will have to play a qualifier against Shokat Ali and if he wins that, he will then have to play another qualifier against Barry Pinches to try to reach the round of 32.

The tournament will be played on the usual 32-rnan knockout format, plus two qualifiers which have been held over to be played here. Besides these, however, two of Malta’s top players, Joe Grech and Simon Zammit will also be given the chance to play as ‘wild cards’ in this event. They will play against the lowest two ranked players who qualify for this event in Malta, namely, Robin Hull and Mark Alien.

‘Wild card’ matches

Both ‘wild card’ matches, as well as Tony Drago’s first qualifying match against Shokat Ali will be played on the 30 January, the opening day of the tournament, where local crowds will be expected to give their usual vociferous support for our players. Three other last 32 matches (Round 1) will also be played on this day. On Tuesday 31, the winner of the Drago-Ali match will play the last 48 qualifier against Barry Pinches along with five other Round one matches. The remaining Round one matches will be played on 1 February.

The last 16 round will be played on 2 February. Till this stage, all matches will be played on a two table setup and will be on a best of nine frame basis.

The quarter finals will see the setup changed to a two table format and these will be played on 3 February starting at 4 pm, all matches best of nine.

Both semi finals will be played on a one table setup on the 4 February, at 3pm and 8pm, best of 11 frames, while the final will be contested on Sunday 5. This will be played over two sessions, one at 2pm and the second at 7pm, and will be best of 17 frames.

All the matches of the Malta Cup will be controlled by six international snooker referees, two of whom are Maltese. These are Michael Attard Montalto and Terry Camilleri, who have all officiated at ranking tournaments in the past, and particularly Terry who has been very active on the snooker circuit this season.

Block tickets

Block Tickets for the Malta Cup will go on sale as from the 3 January 2006, and these will be available at Lm30 from a number of outlets around. Day and session tickets will go on sale as from the 23 January and will be available only from the Hilton. Ticket prices for these will vary from Lm2 to Lm7.

As in past years, we are also looking to make special parking arrangements for those who purchase tickets, as a substantial discount on parking charges will be available to them on presentation of a validated ticket. Parking facilities will be available at the Portomaso Hilton car park.

Also addressing the news conference was Nicky Fuller, Commercial Director of World Snooker, in Malta to launch the seventh ever world ranking event to be held here.

“The players really enjoy this event and are always impressed with the quality of the event and the welcome they receive.” said Ms Fuller. “This year we are also pleased that The Malta Tourism Authority and Malta Direct are supporting the event. The increased levels of sponsorship demonstrate the increasing popularity of snooker here and globally.”

Other sponsors include the Hilton, Air Malta and Multiplus. They were all thanked by the organisers for without their help, such events would not be possible.

No mean feat

The conference was introduced by Joe Zammit, director of Snooker Promotions (Malta) who also said it was no mean feat to bring over such quality players to play here.”

Richard Balani then said that the event is providing an opportunity for a good number of visitors to come over for a holiday as well as enjoying some top class snooker. “Last year we had half the number of spectators at the Hilton Conference Centre from overseas. This year we are expecting an even larger number of visitors to the island to watch the tournament,” he added.

TV coverage

The event will be covered extensively by television, both local as well as international. For the first time, arrangements have been made with Multiplus to broadcast live all the matches to be played on the main table. Besides this, the well known and prestigious television network, Eurosport, will also be broadcasting the event on a live and recorded basis, extending the tournament’s reach to over 95 countries and 255 million households. Such international exposure will also serve to once again put Malta on the sporting map. This event is arguably the only sport that is staged in Malta and that ensures the participation of all the world’s best players, in effect, sports tourism at its very best.

Attending the conference were Romwald Lungaro Mifsud, chairman of the Malta Tourism Authority, Jimmy Attard, manager marketing and Promotions, of Air Malta, Joe Gauci, of Malta Direct and Anton Attard, general manager of Multiplus.