The Ho Chi Minh City World Cup was an astounding success, from the point of view of the home country. Three Vietnamese players were in the semifinals, with just one European: the reigning world champion Frédéric Caudron. The starring roles were for Quyet Chien Tran, Dinh Nai Ngo and Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, as they sent a message to Western Europe. It read: Vietnam, next to Korea, is now a leading power in the world of 3-cushion.
It was Quyet Chien Tran who won twice on the last day: he beat Frédéric Caudron 40-39 (26) in the semi and repeated that score in the final against Dinh Nai Ngo: 40-39 (15).
The final in the Nguyen arena will go down as one of the most exciting in World Cup history. Tran, the more experienced and successful of the two Vietnamese, was put on the back foot by Ngo who had a rocket start to the match. Consecutive runs of 5, 9, 4 and 11 gave him 29 points in just 4 innings and he looked well on his way to the title. Tran did not panic and mounted a great comeback after the interval.
From 33-23 in his favor, Ngo started to struggle. Tran defended mercilessly and Ngo missed seven times. To his credit, he still managed to run 6, but he missed by an inch on the final point. Tran ran out, his last point a courageous bank shot. Having lost two WC finals already (Seoul 2007 and Guri 2016), this was his day. Ngo was left with consolation prizes: runner-up and the tournament high run (18).
One by one, the European favorites disappeared from the arena. Sánchez lost to Uymaz, Jaspers to Hyung Kon Kim, Zanetti to Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, Merckx to Ngo. Blomdahl had a sparkling match and a narrow victory against Carlsen in 16 innings, then lost big to Ngo, the later runner-up.
The one player who resisted was Caudron, who did not show his very best but kept winning: Dong Koong Kang, Sung Won Choi and Morales could not keep up with the reigning world champion. In the semi however, Tran beat him 40-39 in a match that could have gone either way. In the other semi, Ngo had it easy against a struggling Nguyen: 40-17 in 19.
The Ho Chi Minh World Cup of 2018, like the three previous editions, was watched by well over a thousand wildly enthusiastic fans. The days of polite silence in billiards are over; cheers, whistles and applause are the new norm.
Final result of the Ho Chi Minh City World Cup:
1 Quyet Chien Tran 2.000
2 Dinh Nai Ngo 2.072
3 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 1.876
3 Frédéric Caudron 1.709
5 Myung-Woo Cho 1.854
6 Eddy Merckx 1.745
7 Birol Uymaz 1.657
8 Robinson Morales 1.306
9 Eddy Leppens 2.000
10 Hyung Kon Kim 1.891
11 Marco Zanetti 1.783
12 Jung-Han Heo 1.777
13 Torbjörn Blomdahl 1.717
14 Sung-Won Choi 1.461
15 Anh Vu Duong 1.372
16 Tayfun Tasdemir 1.301
17 Tonny Carlsen 2.437
18 Dick Jaspers 1.842
19 Jae-Guen Kim 1.833
20 Sameh Sidhom 1.666.
The high run was made by Dinh Nai Ngo, with 18. The high average (only one match) was played by Tonny Carlsen: 2.437.
The new world ranking:
1 Frédéric Caudron, 450 points
2 Eddy Merckx 369
3 Marco Zanetti 335
4 Haeng Jik Kim 322
5 Dani Sánchez 291
6 Torbjörn Blomdahl 266
7 Murat Naci Coklu 260
8 Jae-Ho Cho 254
9 Dick Jaspers 246
10 Quyet Chien Tran 227
11 Sameh Sidhom 220
12 Jung-Han Heo 216
13 Sung-Won Choi 214
14 Nguyen Quoc Nguyen 196
15 Nikos Polychronopoulos 184
16 Myung-Woo Cho 161
17 Eddy Leppens 158
18 Jérémy Bury 157
19 Minh Cam Ma 155
20 Dinh Nai Ngo 154
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