Morning all, Reggie here. Vietnam has another giant-killing to talk about over breakfast: Hoang Thai Duy knocked Dennis Orcollo onto the one-loss side 9–8 in Ho Chi Minh City this morning. In Leicester, Shaun Murphy finished what he started on Wednesday afternoon and did not drop a frame all day. There is also a women's title in Maine, the para-pool Euros in Warsaw and a correction on Indore.
HO CHI MINH CITY — ORCOLLO PUSHED TO THE LOSS SIDE
The last twelve first-round ties of the Universal Open went off from 4am UK, and the headline came straight away. Home player Hoang Thai Duy beat Dennis Orcollo 9–8, according to the official DigitalPool bracket. It follows James Aranas losing to Nguyen Manh Duc on day one, so that is two Filipino big names on the one-loss side in two days. Germany's Max Eberle forfeited his opener to Thailand's Kemnark Kittisak.
Thursday's first-round block
- Hoang Thai Duy 9–8 Dennis Orcollo
- Marvin Asis 9–6 Duru Ates Bora
- Damian John Massey 9–5 Vu Van Minh
- Anthony Raga 9–5 Ho Minh Hanh
- Nguyen Viet Tam 9–5 Liu Chien Hung
- Jefrey Roda 9–6 Nguyen Van Dung
- Genesis Quano 9–6 Nguyen Phuc Long
- Nguyen Anh Tuan 9–4 Chang Chiu Lang
- Chang Yu Lung 9–4 Pham Tran Thang
- Julian Serradilla 9–6 Nguyen Hoang Tuan
- Michael Feliciano 9–6 Do Thanh My
- Kemnark Kittisak won by forfeit over Max Eberle
Those scores are as posted on the bracket. Written reports from the venue have not caught up yet, so treat them as provisional until they do. Every first-round loser now plays a race to eight on the one-loss side, and winners' side round two is already under way. Aloysius Yapp, Carlo Biado and Johann Chua all came through on day one. The event runs to Sunday at Sniper Billiards Club, with a $63,000 prize fund. The TV table is live on WNT TV.
LEICESTER — MURPHY'S PERFECT DAY
Shaun Murphy played ten frames at the Mattioli Arena on Wednesday and won all ten. After the 4–0 against Ronnie O'Sullivan in the afternoon, he beat Chang Bingyu 6–0 in the Group Three final, per WST's LiveSnooker report.
Frame by frame, according to CueTracker: 68–40, 95–0, 142–0, 107–18, 78–59, 97–35. That is breaks of 50, 142, 107, 78 and 70, with back-to-back centuries to go 4–0 up at the interval. Chang had his chance in frame five, missing a routine red at 59–0 up, and Murphy answered with a 78 clearance. Tatiana Woollaston was the referee.
It is a neat bit of revenge. Chang beat Murphy 4–0 at the Welsh Open in February with four centuries, while Murphy scored one point. Chang had come from 3–1 down to beat world champion Wu Yize 4–3 earlier in the day.
Champion of Champions — what's next
- Today, 1pm: Zhao Xintong v Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Kyren Wilson v Ali Carter, best of seven
- Today, 7pm: Group Two final, best of 11
- Friday, 7pm: semi-final, Chris Wakelin v Neil Robertson
- Saturday, 7pm: semi-final, Shaun Murphy v the Group Two winner
- Sunday: best-of-19 final, 1pm and 7pm sessions
MAINE — KIBAROGLU QUEEN OF THE SLATE
Turkey's Eylul Kibaroglu went unbeaten through 128 players to win the 2nd Annual Queen of the Slate at Forest City Billiards in Portland, Maine, on 7–8 November, per AZBilliards. She beat Aleksandra Guleikova 11–4 in the final. It was the first stop on the J. Pechauer Northeast Women's Tour since last November.
Her first match was against a six-year-old, Ella Troiano, who took four racks off her before losing 7–4. Guleikova played 13 matches to reach the final, six of them in a row on the loss side. Nicole Albergaria finished as the top amateur and took the WPBA qualifying spot.
Tour director Briana Miller told AZBilliards the tour set a hard minimum of 32 prepaid players per event this year. For 2027, the plan is four bigger quarterly events instead of one a month.
WARSAW — PARA-POOL EUROS
The EPBF Parasport European Championships at the BOSS Hotel move into the 8-ball today, which runs to Saturday in both the standing and wheelchair divisions. The 10-ball events are scheduled to finish today, with Poland's Adam Wilk defending the title he won from 4–2 down against Cyprus's Georgios Malekkidis in Starachowice last year. Medals are presented on Monday evening. Everything is streamed on TVSports, with results on the EPBF site.
INDORE — A CORRECTION
Last night I said play starts at the IBSF World Snooker Championships today. It does not. Thursday is the players' and referees' meeting at the Yeshwant Club at 7pm local time, Stage 1 men's qualifying starts on Friday, and the men's main event and the women's event both begin on Tuesday 17 November. Both finals are on Saturday 21 November. India has 22 players in the field, led by Pankaj Advani and Anupama Ramachandran, with players from more than 30 countries, per Dainik Bhaskar.
Later today
- Leicester's Group Two afternoon results
- Ho Chi Minh City round two
- The Warsaw 10-ball medallists
That's me for now. Reggie.
Feature image: "Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 2025 (1)" by Andrej146, via Wikimedia Commons, released under CC0 (public domain).
