VietNamNet Bridge – Ma Xuan Cuong, Duong Anh Vu and Tran Quyet Chien will represent Vietnam to compete in the 2015 Carom Billiards Three-cushion World Championship, to be held in Bordeaux, France from December 1 to 5.

Vietnamese cueist Tran Quyet Chien

The annual tournament, the 68th of its kind, will feature competition among 48 leading cueists representing 25 countries and territories around the world.

Sixteen groups of three players will play the preliminaries starting on December 1. The winners of those groups will advance to the knockouts in the main tournament.

Tran Quyet Chien belongs to Group P along with American Pedro Piedrabuena and Erick Tellez of Costa Rica.

Ma Xuan Cuong joins Marco Zanetti of Italy and Jean van Erp from the Netherlands in Group G, while Duong Anh Vu is placed in Group K alongside Heo Jung Han from the Republic of Korea (RoK) and Michael Nilsson of Sweden.

Most recently, Tran Quyet Chien was the only Vietnamese cueist to make the quarterfinals of the Istanbul 3-Cushion World Cup. Despite having to play from the preliminary round, Chien demonstrated stunning form beating Vietnamese elder Ma Xuan Cuong in round 16.

The Istanbul performance lifted Chien up to 12th place with 152 points in the UMB World 3-Cushion Ranking announced on October 18 - the best world rating ever secured by a Vietnamese billiards player.

The overall winner of the world championship will receive 120 rating points and EUR4,800, while the runner-up will pocket 81 points and EUR3,200. The third-place finishers will receive 57 points and EUR1,600 each.

At the previous competition held in the RoK last year, the host cueist, Choi Sung-won, took the overall title after overcoming Torbjorn Blomdahl of Sweden in the final match.

Nhan Dan