Pool

Dương Quốc Hoàng of Việt Nam and three teammates will compete at a record-breaking $1,000,000 prize World Pool Championship in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. — Photo of Vietcontent

HÀ NỘI — 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 US$1,000,000 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.

Việt Nam's top stars Dương Quốc Hoàng and Nguyễn Anh Tuấn are in the top 100 so they automatically have their slots. Phạm Phương Nam and Lường Đức Thiện are world No 103 and No 106, respectively. They have joined the competition after other players pulled out.

Tuấn will face 2018 European champion Konrad Juszczyszyn of Poland in the first match.

Nam will face China's Dang Jin Hu who won the Spain Open in 2023.

Hoàng, champion of the 2024 Scottish Open will be up against Singapore's Toh Lian Han while Thiện will play 2023 Hà Nội Open winner Elliott Sanderson of UK.

Elite cueists will battle it out in a double-elimination format. The winning player will bring home $250,000, the highest ever amount of cash on the World Nineball Tour system. It is more than four times higher than $60,000 that Ruiz bagged last year.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has hosted the world’s premier sporting spectacles of late and we are thrilled to be staging the prestigious World Pool Championships in Jeddah," CEO Emily Frazer of Matchroom Multi Sport, which launches the tournament, said on matchroompool.com.

"Now the world’s top 100 are all signed up, this tournament truly will live up to the hype. The fans are in for a real treat and you will not want to miss it.

“We are hugely grateful to both the Saudi Arabian Billiard & Snooker Federation and the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Sport for their incredible vision and invaluable support in making this elite event a reality.”

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.

“We could not be more excited to host the World Pool Championship, an incredible international event steeped in history and prestige with a huge global following," said Saudi Arabia Billiard & Snooker Federation President Nasser Saab Al-Shammari.

"Welcoming the world’s greatest players for the ‘Crown Jewel’ of the World Nineball Tour is an occasion that will certainly be embraced and enjoyed by a Saudi population whose affiliation with this sport dates back many decades. The opportunity to work alongside both Matchroom Sport and our Ministry of Sport in staging this spectacle is a genuine privilege.”

Việt Nam's best result was a place in the quarter-final round by veteran Lương Chí Dũng in 2006, Đỗ Thế Kiên in 2019 and Hoàng last year. This year, quarter-finalists will walk away with $27,000. VNS