Luong Duc Thien wins the Korean female player

Duc Thien lost his opening match 0-5 to former European champion Konrad Juszczyszyn, and then lost to world number 14 Naoyuki Oi 2-5 in the second match. The best chance for him to earn points was the match against Korean female player Seo Seoa and he succeeded with a close victory.

Vietnamese players entered the game better and led 3-0, then 4-1. However, Seo Seoa won the next three games to equalize, including a situation of adding 9. In the last game, after a failed shot by the opponent, Duc Thien took advantage of the opportunity to win 5-4.

The match takes place with a slow tempo, when two players often want to run bullets. Both did not create a game to break the marbles, clear the table. They also made mistakes in many simple ball positions, but Duc Thien did better at the decisive moment.

After the first day of competition with three matches, Duc Thien ranked 13th with one win, ahead of Wu Kun Lin and two female players Seo Seoa and Chou Chieh Yu. On the second day, starting at 6 pm today, March 7, Hanoi time, the representative of Vietnam met Wu Kun Lin, Khalid Alghamdi and Shane van Boening in turn.

Seo Seoa is 26 years old, once entered the semi-finals of the world pool 9 ball in January 2023. And Chou is the defending champion of that tournament, ranked second in the world in the order of WPA women's players.

Duc Thien, 31 years old from Bac Kan, won the Vietnam 9 ball pool in 2020. He attended the tournament after seniors Duong Quoc Hoang and Nguyen Anh Tuan could not apply for a visa to the UK. Because he rarely competes internationally, Duc Thien is the only player at the tournament not listed in the WPA table.