Tran Quyet Chien won big and quickly advanced to the next round at the Ho Chi Minh City Billiards World Cup.

Tran Quyet Chien has an impressive start at the 2025 Ho Chi Minh City World Cup - Photo: DUC PHONG

The "terrifying" performance of Tran Quyet Chien

At this year's tournament, Tran Quyet Chien fell into a rather heavy group D, with top Korean player, 3-time World Cup champion Kim Haeng Jik, reigning Korean champion Choi Wan Young and veteran Turkish player, currently ranked 13th in the world Berkay Karakurt.

But facing huge challenges, the Vietnamese player has proven why he is often in the world's top 10.

In the opening match, Tran Quyet Chien overwhelmingly won Karakurt 40-19 after 21 innings.

In the second round, he had some difficulty against Kim Haeng Jik's difficult play. However, Tran Quyet Chien played calmly and carefully in each stroke to win 40-32 after 22 rounds.

Two consecutive wins quickly helped him qualify. In the final match, playing with a relaxed mentality, he only needed 10 innings to defeat Choi Wan Young 40-14 to win the top spot in the group.

Tran Quyet Chien's performance on the first day of the Ho Chi Minh City World Cup was impressive, reaching 2,264 points/turn.

Also moving on in Group D is Kim Haeng Jik.

Vietnamese player causes surprise

Nguyen Nhu Le continuously causes surprises from the qualifying round to the main round - Photo: DUC PHONG

Besides Tran Quyet Chien, many home players also won tickets to the next round. Among them, we must mention Nguyen Dinh Quoc in group F, who could only participate in the main round thanks to a ticket from the qualifying round.

In the opening match, he defeated Glen Hofman 40-34. In the second match, Dinh Quoc quickly won the ticket to the next round when defeating the 2024 Ankara World Cup champion Heo Jung Han 40-36. Therefore, the loss to Kim Jun Tae (25-40) in the final match did not affect the Vietnamese player much.

In Group A, Nguyen Nhu Le only lost to world number 1 Dick Jaspers. The win over Abdin Mohamed (Egypt) and the draw against Ryuuji Umeda (Japan) were enough to help him finish second in the group, making it to the round of 16.

In Group G, Dao Van Ly won the ticket to continue with 3 wins despite having to face strong opponents such as Jeremy Bury (France), Tolgahan Kiraz and Tayfun Tasdemir (Türkiye). Le Thanh Tien also won the ticket to continue in Group C with the top position.

Although there were many players who made surprises, the big names of Vietnam unfortunately stopped. That was the case of Bao Phuong Vinh, Tran Thanh Luc,

Some of the world's strongest players such as Cho Myung Woo, Frederick Caudron, Peter Ceulemans, Tolgahan Kiraz... were also eliminated early at this year's Ho Chi Minh City Billiards World Cup.

DUC KHUE

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/tran-quyet-chien-dai-thang-di-tiep-chong-vanh-tai-world-cup-billiards-tp-hcm-20250523222027245.htm