Against the opponent considered the leading candidate for the championship with a force including world-class players such as Albin Ouschan, Jasmin Ouschan, Mario He, the representatives of Vietnam played resiliently, creating a stalemate that lasted until the decisive penalty shootout.
In the pivotal match, Duong Quoc Hoang continued to show his leading role when winning 2 important sets, keeping hope for the Vietnamese team. In set 4, this player came back to win 4-3 against Albin Ouschan after being led 0-3, thereby bringing the match to a nerve-wracking penalty shootout.
Entering the decisive round, Albin Ouschan successfully executed the first shot for the Austrian team. Meanwhile, the representative of Vietnam, Pham Phuong Nam, did not take advantage of the opportunity in the opening shot. Although Mario He also made mistakes afterwards, the Vietnamese players still could not correct their mistakes in the next shots and accepted a 2-3 defeat.
This year's tournament takes place in Las Vegas (USA), gathering 24 national teams with a total prize value of up to 300,000 USD. The matches are organized in a 10-ball team format, competing in set race to 4, with each team using a squad of 3 athletes in each match, including 2 same-sex athletes and 1 heterosexual athlete.
Competing in a team structure, same-sex doubles, mixed doubles and singles requires teams not only to have good individual skills but also to have the ability to coordinate tactics and adapt flexibly to the diễn biến of the match.
Although stopping in the quarterfinals, the performance against the Austrian team shows that the Vietnamese billiards team is gradually narrowing the gap with leading powers, thereby creating a basis for further goals in international arenas in the future.
