Chris Peplow and Joseph Casha have secured their places in the knockout stages of the World Snooker Championship in Sofia, Bulgaria, following the conclusion of the lengthy group phase on Wednesday.

A total of 78 players progressed to the knockout rounds, with Peplow and Casha the only two Maltese representatives to advance. Peplow had already confirmed his qualification a day earlier and rounded off an outstanding group campaign with another commanding performance.

Peplow cruised to a 3–0 victory over England’s Steven Croker, posting frame scores of 82–30, 47–25 and 75–0, the latter highlighted by a 55-point break. With four wins from four matches, Peplow finished top of Group X. He was one of 26 players to remain unbeaten in the group phase, earning a direct passage to the last 64 and bypassing the preliminary knockout round.

Peplow will discover his next opponent after the qualifying match between Scotland’s Steven Wardropper and England’s Luke Pinches. His last-64 encounter is scheduled for Thursday at 3pm and will be played over a best-of-seven frames format, which applies to all knockout matches up to the semi-finals.

Joseph Casha also progressed after closing his group campaign in emphatic fashion. He defeated Romania’s Matei Unguru 3–0, winning the frames 51–25, 47–8 and 63–21. Casha now faces a preliminary knockout match on Thursday at 9am against Serbia’s Vasilije Pešić, who was beaten by Alex Borg during the group phase. Victory would see Casha advance to the last 64.

Wednesday also brought a surprise exit for veteran Alex Borg, who was eliminated after a 3–2 defeat to England’s Steve Crowley. Crowley had struggled throughout the tournament, failing to win a match and claiming just two frames across his previous three outings, making Borg’s elimination all the more unexpected.

Brian Cini and Aaron Busuttil also bowed out of the competition. Both had harboured slim hopes of progression, relying on defeats for Poland’s Sebastian Milewski and China’s Wang Xinzhong respectively, but those results did not materialise. Cini did finish on a high, however, recording a comprehensive 3–0 win over Romania’s Andrei Călin in his final group match. Despite his opponent’s limitations, Cini impressed with breaks of over 50 points in every frame, including two in the final frame, winning 64–13, 94–0 and 127–0.

Chris Camilleri, already mathematically eliminated before his final group match, concluded his campaign with a 3–0 defeat to Bulgaria’s Zhan Laushman.

With the group phase now complete, attention turns to the knockout rounds, where Peplow and Casha will look to continue Malta’s presence in the championship.