Malta’s Tony Drago has moved up a further 12 places in the provisional world snooker ranking list.

The Valletta-born player, who returned to the Main Tour after his European Masters win last season, started the season in 96th place, but quickly climbed to 80th after the preliminary rounds of the Shanghai Masters event over the past few days.

In the first qualifying round last Monday he received a walkover over China’s Li Hang, then went on to beat David Morris dramatically 5-4 in a second round (qualifying) match – coming back strongly from 1-4 in arrears – only to lose narrowly 5-4 to Marcus Campbell the following day.

These matches have enabled Drago to move up to 68th place in the world standings and this has certainly been one of the most promising starts to a season for the Maltese ace after several disappointments which had forced him to disappear from the Ranking List.

Drago started the new season with 5,850 points and collected 1,260 points in the Shanghai Masters tournament. He now has 7,110 points.