Ranked above billiards "genius" Caudron

In Group N of the fourth qualifying round of the Veghel 2024 3-cushion carom billiards World Cup, which took place from the afternoon of October 23, Tran Thanh Luc was in Group F with Le Thanh Tien and Gerhard Kostistansky (Denmark). The player who just won the runner-up position at the 2024 World Championship in Binh Thuan continued to show impressive form when he won 2 extremely convincing victories. In both matches, Thanh Luc defeated his opponent with the number of cues not exceeding 15.

In turn, Tran Thanh Luc defeated Le Thanh Tien 40-25 after 14 rounds, before defeating Gerhard Kostistansky 40-16 after only 12 rounds. After 2 matches, the player born in 1990 had a total of 4 series of 8 points. Thanh Luc's average scoring efficiency was 3.076 points (rounds), the highest in the fourth qualifying round. Tran Thanh Luc's parameters were higher than Frederic Caudron, who also passed the fourth qualifying round with 2 wins, with a scoring efficiency of 2.424 (points/round).

Meanwhile, Le Thanh Tien, despite losing to his compatriot Tran Thanh Luc, played very well in the remaining match. Thanh Tien had a big series of 13 points in the match against Gerhard Kostistansky 40-30, after 17 turns. With a high average scoring efficiency of 2.096, Thanh Tien won the ticket to the next round as he was in the group of 3 best second-place players.

The remaining two Vietnamese players who passed the fourth qualifying round of the 2024 Veghel World Cup were Nguyen Hoan Tat and Nguyen Tran Thanh Tu. Nguyen Hoan Tat, despite being in a difficult group with Jeremy Bury (France) and Peter De Backer (Belgium), played excellently to win the group and advance. Hoan Tat had a spectacular comeback against De Backer in the final rounds, before convincingly defeating "time king" Bury.

Nguyen Tran Thanh Tu played consistently and also won 2 victories against Takeshima (Japan) and Szivacs (Austria). Thereby, Thanh Tu also participated in the final round (round of 32) of the Veghel World Cup 2024.

Regretful stop

In his opening match at the Veghel 2024 World Cup, Tran Duc Minh created an incredible comeback against the player nicknamed "giant" Sam Van Etten. From being down 20-5 before the match entered the break, the 2024 Ho Chi Minh City World Cup champion had a strong breakthrough in the second half. The Vietnamese player devised a reasonable strategy to hold his opponent back, while making the most of his opportunities to score points and won 40-35 overall, after 25 turns.

However, Tran Duc Minh could not defeat Turgay Orak (Türkiye), losing with a score of 33-40 after 30 rounds. Duc Minh's score was not high enough for him to get a ticket to the second place group, so the player born in 1981 had to stop at the fourth qualifying round.

Besides Duc Minh, another talented player, Nguyen Chi Long, also failed to pass the fourth qualifying round. Chi Long convincingly defeated the highly rated opponent of the host, De Bruijn, with a score of 40-29, but could not defeat Peter Ceulemans (Belgium) in the decisive match for the ticket to the next round.

Thus, Vietnamese billiards has 4 players passing the fourth qualifying round: Tran Thanh Luc, Nguyen Hoan Tat, Nguyen Tran Thanh Tu and Le Thanh Tien. Along with Tran Quyet Chien and Bao Phuong Vinh who were given special permission, Vietnam has 6 representatives participating in the final round (round of 32) of the Veghel World Cup 2024.