Malta’s Tony Drago was bundled out of the Shanghai Masters Open tournament yesterday when he lost 5-1 to Ryan Day in a Last 32 round match.

Drago had a good qualifying run, including last Monday’s match against Wild Card entry A. Bulajiong of China, but he fell a cropper against Day who was in command for most of the time.

The Welshman, playing his first match as a top 16 player, was in fine form with breaks of 106, 77, 63 and 60.

Day took a 2-0 lead thanks to breaks of 106 in the first and a 77 in the second. Drago took the third thanks to a 54 break, but Day remained in command to take a 3-1 lead before the break, winning the fourth rather narrowly 57-53.

After the interval, Day had good breaks of 63 in the fifth and 60 in the sixth to clinch his victory.

Frame scores (Day first): 131-4; 77-15; 6-75; 57-53; 70-4; 74-0.

Meanwhile, John Higgins had a fantastic start to the tournament as he moved into the Last 16 with an impressive 5-2 win over Jamie Cope.

The Wizard of Wishaw set up a last 16 clash with Mark Selby, his victim in the 888.com World Snooker Championship final in May, or Yang Qingtian who surprisingly defeated Scott Mackenzie of Scotland in a Wild Card round match on Monday.

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Alex Borg wins at Pontin’s

While Drago was playing in Shanghai, China, Alex Borg was playing the qualifying rounds of the second event of the Pontin’s International Open Series.

In the first round on Monday night, Borg won narrowly 5-4 against Andy Symons-Rowe, during which he compiled good breaks of 74 and 51.

He set up a Last 64 round clash with David John which had to be played yesterday evening.

Meanwhile, a player of Maltese origin, Leighton Gauci, suffered a 4-0 defeat at the hands of Clinton Faulkner to bow out of the first round.