Home hero Duong Quoc Hoang wins as Universal Open day one closes
Vietnam's favourite son headlined a 14-strong home winning contingent — but three featured names, including Bernie Regalario, fell to the one-loss side on opening day.
HO CHI MINH CITY — Dương Quốc Hoàng delivered the moment the home crowd came for, beating Chiang Po Hsun in Wednesday's prime-time finale as 52 of the 64 first-round ties settled on opening day at the Universal Open Ho Chi Minh.
The world's top two both moved through on the winners' side at Sniper Billiards Club: world No. 1 Aloysius Yapp edged Hong Kong's Wan Kwok Ho in the day's opening tie, while world No. 2 Carlo Biado saw off Nguyễn Hoang Minh Tai. Newly crowned Philippines Open champion Johann Chua beat Hồ Sở Phát, and Mickey Krause, Robbie Capito, Oliver Szolnoki and Wu Kun Lin also won through — Wu surviving a scare against home man Lương Văn Nam.
Three featured names, though, dropped to the one-loss side and now sit a single defeat from elimination. James Aranas was beaten by Vietnam's Nguyễn Mạnh Đức, Bernie Regalario fell to the country's top women's player Nguyễn Bích Trâm, and Jeffrey Ignacio lost out to Aljulanda Alshiyadi.
Dương's victory headlined a banner day for the hosts — fourteen Vietnamese players came out winners across the five session blocks, including Cao Văn Hào over Filipino Harry Vergara, Chu Việt Hoàng over Japan's Kouki Sugiyama and Nguyễn Đăng Tuyên in a narrow escape against Chan Fai Hang. The day's most emphatic scorelines came early: Taiwan's Chang Yi Wei whitewashed Lê Quang Tuấn 9-0 and Lường Đức Thiện dropped just one rack to Liu Nuoen.
No day-one loser is out yet — the double-elimination phase runs to the last 64, with the beaten moving into race-to-eight ties on the one-loss side. The remaining twelve first-round matches close the round on Thursday morning, headed by Dennis Orcollo against Hoàng Thái Duy and Anton Raga against Hồ Minh Hánh, before the bracket cuts to a straight knockout building to Sunday's race-to-13 final and the $15,000 top prize from the $63,000 fund.
Sources: results as recorded on the official Digital Pool bracket; scorelines cited only where independently confirmed by BilliardNews' draw report. See our draw coverage and tournament preview.
