Alex Borg, Duncan Bezzina and Simon Zammit together with MBSA president Joe Caruana Curran flew to India yesterday to represent Malta in the 2009 IBSF world championships which start today in Hyderabad.

One hundred and sixty eight players from 45 countries will compete in the championships which will be played on 20 tables at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre. Ninety six players will feature in the Men’s championships, 48 in the Masters (Over 40) category while 24 ladies will compete for the Women’s title.

Borg and Bezzina will take part in the Men’s championship while Zammit is taking part for the first time in the Masters. The 96 players in the Men’s category were divided into 16 groups of six players each with the top four in each group qulaifying into the last 64 knock-out stages.

Borg has been drawn in Group D together with Manan Chandra of India, Faaris Khan (South Africa), James Mifsud (Australia), Alexander Gauss (Austria) and Khaled Belaid Mohamed of Libya.

Bezzina is in Group M together with LimChun Kiat of Singapore, Joeri Reisig (Netherlands), Bobby Cruickshanks (Scotland), Dhruv Sitwala (India) and Yu Delu of China.

In the Masters category, the 48 players were divided into eight groups of six players each with the top four also qualifying into the last 32 knock-out stages.

Zammit has been drawn in Group B together with local favourite Geet Sethi, Ayyoub Alsharrat (Kuwait), Abdul Mohsen Khammis (Qatar), Clive Thomson (New Zealand) and Mostafa Aly of Egypt.

Caruana Curran will be Malta’s delegate in the IBSF annual general meeting on 24 November.

The championships will be shown live on ESPN Asia and there will also be live streaming on www.worldsnooker2009.in.