Hanoi (VNA) - Four Vietnamese pool stars will compete for huge cash prizes at the 2024 World Pool Championship in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia this week.
The tournament, from June 3-8, features 128 of the world's best players.
A record prize fund of 1,000,000 USD will be contested by the planet’s premier pool cueists, including reigning world champion Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, five-time US Open champion and 2022 world champion Shane Van Boening and 2018 world champion Joshua Filler.
The tournament also features 12 former champions including Albin Ouschan, Fedor Gorst, Carlo Biado, Ko Pin-Yi, Niels Feijen, Thorsten Hohmann, Darren Appleton, Alex Pagulayan and Ralf Souquet.
Vietnam's top stars Duong Quoc Hoang and Nguyen Anh Tuan are in the top 100 so they automatically have their slots. Pham Phuong Nam and Luong Duc Thien are world No 103 and No 106, respectively. They have joined the competition after other players pulled out.
Tuan faces 2018 European champion Konrad Juszczyszyn of Poland in the first match, while Nam meets China's Dang Jin Hu who won the Spain Open in 2023.
Hoang, champion of the 2024 Scottish Open will be up against Singapore's Toh Lian Han while Thien will play 2023 Hanoi Open winner Elliott Sanderson of the UK.
Elite cueists will battle it out in a double-elimination format. The winning player will bring home 250,000 USD, the highest ever amount of cash on the World Nineball Tour system.
The world championship is a largest competition of nine-ball event held annually from 1990. For the next 10 years the tournament will be held in Jeddah.
Vietnam's best result was a place in the quarter-final round by veteran Luong Chi Dung in 2006, Do The Kien in 2019 and Hoang last year. This year, quarter-finalists will walk away with 27,000 USD./.
