Maltese snooker players Tony Drago and Alex Borg were both eliminated from the Riga Open yesterday.

Drago enjoyed mixed fortunes yesterday as the Valletta professional opened the day with a nail-biting 4-3 victory over England’s John J. Astley to reach the fourth round of the tournament.

After sharing the opening four frames of the match, Drago moved on the brink of victory when taking the fifth frame 63-6.

But Astley took the match to a decider when winning the sixth frame 73-8.

However, Drago kept hold of his nerves to win a balanced seventh frame 61-53 to set up a fourth-round clash against Scotland’s Alan McManus.

McManus was on the ball right from the word ‘go’ and quickly settled the match in his favour winning the opening four frames, with a best run of 50.

Borg, on his part, found the going tough against Jimmy Robertson in the third round after he found himself three frames down.

The Malta champion pulled a frame back when taking the fourth but Robertson was not to be denied as he sealed victory when securing the fifth frame to complete a 4-1 success.

Meanwhile, Judd Trump won three matches at the new Kaspersky lab Riga Open on Friday to reach the last 16.

Trump won the Australian Goldfields Open a month ago and is looking to continue his strong start to the season with a deep run in snooker’s first ever pro event in Latvia.

After seeing off Lee Page 4-1 in his opening match, Trump came from 3-0 down to beat Sam Baird 4-3 then thrashed Nigel Bond 4-1 with a top break of 137.

Jak Jones stunned world number one Neil Robertson 4-3 in the last 64, but then lost with the same scoreline to amateur Sean O’Sullivan.

Mark Davis came from 3-1 down to beat Michael Holt 4-3, taking the decider by potting the last pink and black, while promising Chris Wakelin shocked Ricky Walden 4-1.