Borg reaches final stages of Thai tournament

Alex Borg has qualified for the final stages of the SangSom 6 red International after coming through from a qualifying tournament which was held last week in St Petersburg, Russia. The final stages will be played in Bangkok, Thailand, between July 7 and 12.

Borg was one of four European players who made it to the final stages. The other three were Brendan O'Donoghue (Ireland), Sascha Lippe (Germany) and Darren Morgan (Wales).

The Malta champion had wins over Kristjan Helgason (Iceland) 3-2, Yannick Poulain (France) 3-1, Yvan Van Velthoven (Belgium) 3-0 and Sergey Gulevich (Ukraine) 3-0.

The final stages will feature 48 players from all over the world. This includes 20 from the Main Tour, the four European qualifiers, two players each from Oceania and Africa, eight from host country Thailand and the remaining 12 players from other Asian countries in the region.

The players will be divided into eight groups of six players each with the top four qualifying for the last 32 knock-out stage. Matches in the round robin groups will be best-of-seven frames with the final over best-of-15.

Stuart Bingham, of England, won the inaugural edition last year when he beat Ricky Walden, also of England, 8-4 in the final.