Malta was eliminated from the World Cup yesterday after Australia and China, the other two teams in contention, posted wins in their final Group B qualifiers.

Australia defeated the United Arab Emirates 4-1 while China also registered a similar score against Thailand 1.

The results enabled both Australia and China to overtake Malta as they both won 13 frames to Malta’s 12. Had the three teams finished on an equal number of frames, it would have been Australia and China to advance to the quarterfinals as they both beat Malta in their direct match.

Yesterday Malta’s team comprising Tony Drago and Alex Borg, were only interested spectators of the above two matches. They had finished their commitments the day before, registering two wins against Thailand 1 and the United Arab Emirates after having conceded defeats to Australia and China in their opening two matches.