Roberta Cutajar in dream semi-final

It was only a few months ago that Roberta Cutajar got back to the practice tables, a few days later she was representing Malta in the European Snooker Team Championships.

Although she did manage some fine performances in those championships, the results for the Maltese ladies were not that impressive and the Malta Billiards and Snooker Association was highly criticized on a local sports magazine for presenting an inexperienced ladies team at the Dolmen last March.

However Roberta Cutajar soon silenced her critics as a few months later she became the first Maltese female player to make it to a European semi-final. The experience she gathered in the European Team Championships paid off.

An excellent performance by Cutajar, resulted in a 4-1 trashing of German player and number four seed, Anne Hirsch. The Maltese cueist started well in the first frame and took the lead with Hirsch making it one all in the second frame, from then on it was all Roberta.

The semi final will be played today and Cutajar`s opponent will be Tatjana Vasiljeva of Latvia. In the quarters Vasiljeva has beaten Diana Stateczny of Germany 4-2.

In the earlier match match Daniel Wells defeated Malta`s top ranked and current champion Alex Borg 5-1.

The 23 year old Welsh player had the better start and took a two frame lead. Unluckily for Borg, the third frame started in the worst possible way, with the Welshman playing with safety in mind but fluked a red ball in the bottom right hand pocket. With the cue ball on the top cushion behind the colour, Wells opted to play the brown leaving Borg with a very difficult snooker and safety.

This proved costly to the Maltese cueist, and a couple of misses left him trailing the Welshman by 33 points. After a series of missed shots by both players Borg was back on the table and potted an excellent 62 break leaving him in a good position to clinch the frame. Unfortunately a much in form Wells cleared the table soon after and made it 3-0.          

A 67 break in the 4 th frame gave Borg a much deserved frame and hope of a comeback but with some excellent potting and break building, it was Daniel Wells who made it through to the quarters.