A strong field of ten international under 17 snooker players from six European countries are to take part in the second Invitational U/17 Snooker Open to be held at Apple Snooker Club in Bugibba between 10 and 13 January 2008. San Antonio Hotel & Spa will be hosting the players and officials.

The players have been drawn in two groups with five players in each group. The five players in Group A are Luca Brecel (Belgium), Lior Pinhas (Israel), Maximilian Thurr (Austria), Wayne Pace (Malta) and Bairaq Sabih Salman (Sweden). The five players in Group B are Ryan Clark (England), Angelo Eyckmans (Belgium), Anders Czarnecki (Sweden), Shaun Sultana (Malta) and Alexander Gauss (Austria).

Luca Brecel, who is joined by his brilliant coach Danny Moermans and who has already played for Belgium Under 19 national team, is the present European U/17 Snooker Open champion and during the last few months he managed four maximum 147 breaks during training. Luca`s best competitive break is 99.

Other favourites are Ryan Clark who is ranked among the top eight U/16 players in England and the Belgian No2 U/17 player Angelo Eyckmans. Clark`s highest breaks are 100 during a competitive match and 108 in training while Eyckmans highest in competition is 81 and 144 in training. As was witnessed during the first tournament the level of the players is extremely high. During that first invitational European U/17 Snooker Open Maltese, youngster Thurston Grixti did extremely well by finishing in 3rd place.

International referee Raymond Debattista, 14 times Malta national Snooker champion Alfred Borg and Phil Hartley from England will be the three officials in charge of all the 27 games in the tournament.

All the European players are going to be accompanied by their coaches, officials and many spectators. The tournament is being sponsored by San Antonio Hotel & Spa, Apple Snooker Club, the Malta Tourism Authority and Bank of Valletta.