>>> UMB Rankings: Tran Quyet Chien sets new milestone for Vietnamese billiards
>>> Vietnam’s top cueist beats world prodigy to claim Asian three-cushion carom title
Among the competitors are the world’s leading players, including Dick Jaspers (Netherlands, world No. 1), Frederic Caudron (Belgium, world No. 2), Semih Sayginer (Turkey, world No. 4), Merckx Eddy (Belgium, world No. 5), Tasdemir Tayfun (Turkey, world No. 6) and Cho Jae-ho (Republic of Korea, world No. 7).
Hosts Vietnam will be represented by world No. 3 Tran Quyet Chien, world No. 11 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, world No. 13 Ngo Dinh Nai, world No. 23 Ma Minh Cam, world No. 31 Duong Anh Vu and world No. 43 Do Nguyen Trung Hau.
Vietnamese cueists were extremely successful in last year’s tournament, claiming the top-three places, with Tran Quyet Chien taking the championship trophy, Ngo Dinh Nai clinching a second-place finish and Nguyen Quoc Nguyen sharing third prize.
The 2019 World Cup offers a total EUR106,000 up for grabs, with EUR16,000 plus 80 bonus points for the winner, EUR10,000 and 54 points for second, and EUR6,000 and 38 points for third (semifinal losers) at the podium.
The main draw sees 32 cueists play in a round robin in eight groups of four, with the top two players from each group qualifying for the knockout stage.
According to the Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB) regulations, instead of defending their results at the 2018 HCM City World Cup, the players will defend their performances at the Antalya World Cup in Turkey in April 2018. As for the Vietnamese representatives, Tran Quyet Chien and Nguyen Quoc Nguyen will defend their top-16 place (16 points), while Ngo Dinh Nai and Duong Anh Vu will defend a quarterfinal berth (26 points) and a place in the top 32 (eight points), respectively.
