The two billiards tournaments, Predator WPA Men's 10-Ball World Championship 2025 and Box Billiards Mixed Doubles, officially kicked off on September 17 at Military Region 7 Gymnasium (HCMC), gathering a series of top players in the world and Vietnam.
In the mixed doubles event, the exciting matches from the first round attracted great attention. The duo Duong Quoc Hoang - Bui Xuan Vang lost 1-2 to Mario He - Chen Chia Hua in the opening match, but promptly corrected their mistake with a 2-0 victory over Hiraguchi and Serradilla to keep the hope of moving on.
Meanwhile, other representatives of Vietnam such as Nguyen Bich Tram - Nguyen Nhat Thanh or Hoang Minh Tai - Duong Yen Vi could not overcome international strong pairs.
The duo Nguyen Anh Tuan - Tran Tu Tran, after losing to Ko Ping Chung - Chou Chieh-yu, returned in time to win in the losing round.
Notably, many international players played impressively such as the duo Fedor Gorst - Kristina Tkach won 2 consecutive matches, winning tickets in the winning round.
Joshua Filler - Pia Filler won consecutively against Vietnamese representatives and Capito - Seo Seoa, while the duo Ouschan (authrich) was soon eliminated after two consecutive losses.
Other championship candidate pairs such as Ko Pin-Yi - Wei Tzu Chien, Ko Ping-Chung - Chou Chieh- Yu Yu, Wu Kun Lin - Han Yu all had a smooth start.
In the 10 men's badminton event, the Vietnamese players had an emotional opening match.
Nguyen Van Huynh, Nguyen Hoang Phong, Nguyen Bao Chau and Phan Van Kien all won importantly to go deep into the winning branch.
Meanwhile, some other representatives such as Tran Van Quyen, Ngo Quang Trung, Dinh Ngoc Duy or Le Anh Dang had to accept defeat against strong opponents from Japan, the Philippines and Europe.
According to the competition format, the losers still have a chance in the losing round, while the winners will continue to the Winner Round 2 round, competing for a place in the Top 16 of the 2025 10-a-side World Championship finals.
The next matches will take place today (September 18).
This tournament series is jointly organized by Box Billiards, Predator and the Ho Chi Minh City Billiards & Snooker Federation, lasting from September 17 to 28 with a total prize fund of up to 425,000 USD (about 11.2 billion VND).
The 2025 10-a-side men's world championship alone has a total prize of 250,000 USD (nearly 7 billion VND), of which the champion will receive 70,000 USD (more than 1.8 billion VND). This is considered the biggest billiards event ever in Vietnam, gathering many of the world's top players and bringing valuable competition opportunities to domestic players.
