World media admired player Bao Phuong Vinh
Billiards news site Kozoom headlined: "Bao Phuong Vinh - truly an unbelievable world champion", when mentioning the championship title of the 28-year-old player on the evening of September 10.
In the article, author Frits Bakker wrote: "The list of the most famous tournament champions in billiards had a completely new name on Sunday. Bao Phuong Vinh was recently still an unknown player from Vietnam. Nam, won the title from Turkey, among the carom stars".
Bakker is 75 years old, a Dutch player, specializing in writing about billiards for decades. He wrote that he felt strange and unbelievable when he heard the Vietnamese national anthem played at a world championship, and both top players sang the national anthem.
The world 3-band carom championship takes place annually, for the first time since 1928, and has now been held 75 times. There have only been three times in history that two players from the same country have reached the finals, Argentina in 1938, Belgium in 2017 and Vietnam this year. In the final match in Ankara, Phuong Vinh defeated senior Tran Quyet Chien 50-34 to bring home the first championship for Vietnam. 13 months ago, Phuong Vinh competed internationally for the first time, at the World Cup in Seoul, South Korea.
Bakker said that Phuong Vinh's face looked more surprised than happy when standing on the victory podium. The young player, who received a master's degree in economics in Australia and speaks English fluently, needed time to realize the significance of what he had just achieved. "In the 75-year history of the tournament, no emerging player like this has ever won the championship," Bakker added.
Phuong Vinh received 20,000 euros (about 21,500 USD) for the championship. At the same time, President of the World Billiards Federation (UMB) Farouk Barki said that the reward at next year's tournament will double, and take place in Vietnam.
On the UMB homepage, the Federation also headlined: "A star is born: Bao Phuong Vinh". They wrote: "There has never been a player who won the championship for the first time. Phuong Vinh played with talent, concentration and rarely made mistakes in positions that could score points. Before the player was 28 years old scoring the decisive point, Quyet Chien seemed to realize that today was not his day."
Korean news site The Billiards also recalled the World Cup in Seoul last year, when Phuong Vinh "appeared like a comet and attracted the attention of experts". At that time, he won against 2022 world champion Tayfun Tasdemir and the legendary Torbjorn Blomdahl in the group stage, only stopping against Eddy Merckx in the 1/8 round. "In the past year or so, Phuong Vinh has won against the world's number one, number two, and four legendary players," the article said.
Another Korean news site, Mkbn, also said that Phuong Vinh is a new star. "Phuong Vinh's billiards career is very strange, when he became a master and then took up the cue to play professionally," the newspaper wrote. "He decided to become a player after seeing Quyet Chien win the World Cup in Ho Chi Minh City in 2018."
Phuong Vinh is 28 years old, from Binh Duong, is a well-rounded student and received a master's degree in Australia in 2019. At the beginning of 2022, he was not even on the UMB rankings table, but is currently ranked in the Top 10.
