Dominic Dale and Marco Fu for Malta cup 2008

The star studded line-up of the 4th edition of the Malta Cup is now complete with World Snooker naming Domenic Dale and Marco Fun as the two remaining wild cards to make up the 20-player tournament being played between the 4th and the 10th February at the Hilton Conference Centre. The chosen players, both outside the Top-16 official ranking list for the 2007/08 season, have however both won a ranking event this season.

Dale will play in Group 2 which also includes Ken Doherty, Nail Robertson, Joe Swail and Stephen Lee. Fu will feature in Group 4 along with Graeme Dott, Peter Ebdon, Mark Williams and Ding Jun Hui. World Snooker also announced that Joe Perry will be replacing Ronnie O’Sullivan.

Dominic Dale, nicknamed the Spaceman, winner of the year’s edition of the Roewe World Snooker Shanghai Masters, had a rather particular recipe when he was here in 2006 where he made the semi-finals stage of the Malta Cup - Two bottles of red wine a night and minimal practice has proved a winning formula.

Twenty-nine year-old Marco Fu had his best ranking performance this year when he won the Royal London Watches Grand Prix 2007. Marco Fu Ka-chun, being his full Chinese name, was born in Hong Kong and emigrated to Canada with his parents at the age of 12. Fu, described as ‘full of Eastern Promise', is a fêted jetsetter and a keen fan of Manchester United.

The twenty players have been divided into four groups of five players each, with the group winners going through to the semi finals. Further to the above mentioned players making up Groups 2 and 4, the other players featuring in the Malta Cup and their respective groups are:
John Higgins, Joe Perry, Ali Carter, Ryan Day, and Alex Borg in Group 1 with Shaun Murphy, Stephen Hendry, Stephen Maguire, Mark Selby and Tony Drago to contest in Group 3.

Meanwhile online ticket booking is still available through the tournament’s official website namely, www.maltacup.org, while Block tickets will go on sale as from Monday 14th January for €95 each from Café Veneziana in Melita Street, Valletta, from Kids’ Korner in High Street, Hamrun and from 9 Ball Café Snooker Hall in Triq it-Turisti, Qawra.

The Malta Cup, now in its fourth edition, is organised by Snooker Promotions and sanction by World Snooker with the main sponsors being the Malta Tourism Authority, Air Malta, the Hilton Malta and Allevents Malta, which forms part of the UK based Fraser Eagle Group.

By Wilfred Sultana
7th January 2008