HO CHI MINH CITY - The sports stadium in Vietnam, on the day of the World Cup final on Sunday May 27, 2018, will never forget that day. For the first time, a Vietnamese player climbed onto the highest podium of a World Cup. The 33-year-old Quyet Chien Tran showed the trophy in a venue to 1500 enthusiastic spectators. The stage colored even more Vietnamese, because not only Quyet Chien Tran, also Dinh Nai Ngo and Nguyen Quoc Nguyen were welcomed as star players. The only non-Vietnamese on stage was Belgian Frédéric Caudron.
Tomorrow, Monday, May 20, this year's second World Cup starts the engines in the Nguyen du stadium in Ho Chi Minh. The day of three cushion glory is still historic for Vietnamese billiards. Quyet Chien Tran's started to storm the world top, where he is now on third place behind Dick Jaspers and Frédéric Caudron. The two players with Tran on the podium are now also among the elite of global three cushion. The protected top 14 of the ranking now consists of 3 Vietnamese, 3 Turks, 2 Belgians, 2 Koreans, 1 Dutchman, 1 Italian, 1 Egyptian and 1 Frenchman.
With Dick Jaspers as the comfortable leader on the world ranking, the best players in the world face a new showdown. After Tayfun Tasdemir's victory in this year's first World Cup in Antalya, the world top moves to Ho Chi Minh this week, where the qualification rounds are played from May 20-23 and the main tournament on 24, 25 and 26 of May. After Ho Chi Minh, the World Cups of Blankenberg will follow this summer from June 17 to 23 and Porto from July 1 to 7. The last three World Cups are played in the last quarter of 2019.
The Nguyen Du Stadium welcomes 149 players, 17 of whom go directly to the main tournament. The other 132 players meet each other in four days of preliminaries for 15 places in the main tournament, in which on Friday, May 24, 32 players will first show up in eight groups of four. The knock-out phase with sixteen starts on Saturday at noon, the next round is at 2:00. The quarter finals are that day at 4:00 and 6:00. The final day, Sunday May 26, is reserved for the semi-finals and the final.
The fourteen seeded players according to the UMB rankings are Dick Jaspers, Frédéric Caudron, Jae Ho Cho, Semih Sayginer Tayfun Tasdemir, Quyet Chien Tran, Marco Zanetti, Eddy Merckx, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, Murat Naci Coklu, Jérémy Bury, Jung-Han Heo, Sameh Sidhom and Dinh Nai Ngo. The wildcards have been awarded to Erick Tellez from Costa Rica and the Vietnamese Minh Cam Ma and Anh Vu Duong.
The best-known players for the qualifying rounds on Thursday are Torbjörn Blomdahl, Dani Sánchez, Sung-Won Choi, Myung Woo Cho, HaengJik Kim, Martin Horn and Nikos Polychronopoulos.
The ranking points that can be earned replace the scores of Antalya in 2018. Caudron defends 80 points, Coklu 54, Ja-Ho Cho and Sánchez 38. Jaspers is currently 102 points ahead of Caudron (496 for the Dutchman against) 394 for the Belgian). The country with the most players in this World Cup is South Korea with 49, the Turks have 19, Vietnam is with 16 players at the start.
The World Cups of Ho Chi Minh and Guri are the two best tournaments on overall average in the main tournament. The best averages in recent years: 1.776 in 2015 (Hollywood billiards), 1.672 in 2016 (Hollywood), 1.685 in 2017 (Min billiards). This year, the Ho Chi Minh World Cup is on Gabriel's match tables.
Kozoom will broadcast the matches for its members for free on the first three days, from Wednesday a Premium pass is required. The World Cup in Ho Chi Minh... a must for every billiard fan, don't miss this spectacle.
Vietnamese star player Quyet Chien Tran after his last year's win in Ho Chi Minh City