Afternoon all, Reggie here. While most of you were asleep, Korea got through a full day of three-cushion qualifying and a top-of-the-table team league match, so that's where we start.
Yanggu: the schoolboy is still going
The third qualifying round (PQ) of the UMB World Cup in Yanggu has finished. That's 48 matches, 16 groups of three, and only the 16 group winners go on. Of everything in it, the story I keep coming back to is Song Yun Do.
Korean magazine Billiards & Sports describes him as a second-year high-school pupil and Korea's youngest national-team player. He lost his very first match of the week, in the opening PPPQ round, and only scraped through as a runner-up. Since then he hasn't lost. Yesterday he topped the whole PPQ field with a 1.935 average, and that included a 30 in 10 innings against Son Jun Hyuk. Today he beat Kevin Vasseur 35–23 and Atsushi Kiyota 35–29 to win PQ Group P. Next he meets O Takeshima in the final qualifying round.
The best single performance of the day came from Jeong Sung Il. He beat Nguyen Hoan Tat 35–19 in 10 innings, and the scoresheet shows a high run of 10 for each of them. He then beat Muammer Rahmet 35–30 to win Group H. Xportsnews has Jeong's two-match average at 2.121. Nguyen, who was one of Vietnam's best stories of the PPQ, goes out despite a 2.076 of his own. Three-cushion can be harsh like that.
Other PQ talking points:
- Park Su Yeong won Group K with a 2.058 average. He beat Gerhard Kostistansky 35–24 in 16 innings, and per Xportsnews that included a run of 14.
- Son Jun Hyuk made a run of 15 in a 35–26 win over Takeshima in 13 innings and still went home. Group A finished in a three-way tie on one win each, and Takeshima went through on average.
- Group D was another three-way tie, and Alexander Salazar came out on top after losing to Ali Gulbay and then edging Tarik Yavuz 35–32.
- Germany's Tom Löwe did it the hard way, beating Takao Miyashita 35–29 and Kim Jin Youl 35–34.
- Former world champion Ryuuji Umeda is out. Serdal Bas beat him 35–22 and won Group M.
- Sam van Etten won both of his games, including 35–22 over Kim Geonyun in 16 innings. Tobias Bouerdick lost both and is out.
- Four Vietnamese players are through: Le Nguyen Nhu, Le Thanh Tien, Nguyen Dinh Quoc and Pham Quoc Thuan, who knocked out both Recep Bulut and Claus Maurer.
- Korea's 16-year-old Kim Hyeon Woo beat Javier Gomariz but lost to Maxime Panaia, so his week is over.
The 16 PQ winners: Song Yun Do, Jeong Sung Il, Park Su Yeong, Lee Jung Hee, Takeshima, Löwe, van Etten, Salazar, Panaia, José-María Mas, Pham Quoc Thuan, Nguyen Dinh Quoc, Javier Vera, Serdal Bas, Le Thanh Tien and Le Nguyen Nhu.
Now they face the seeded Q-round players, including Torbjörn Blomdahl, Roland Forthomme, Peter Ceulemans and Nikos Polychronopoulos. Openers include Takeshima v Song, Löwe v Lee Jung Hee, Huberney Catano v Park Su Yeong and Hwang Bong Joo v Jeong Sung Il. Waiting in the main draw are Cho Myung-woo, who opens against Daniel Morales, Dick Jaspers against Thai Hong Chiem, and Eddy Merckx against Choi Wan Young. Everything is on Soop, and Korea is nine hours ahead of us. Results are on Five & Six and Billiard Today.
PBA Team League: Huons take over at the top
Crown Haitai came into today's match with Huons unbeaten in round four. Huons won it 4–1 after losing the first set. Per Billiards & Sports:
- Kang Dong-koong beat Crown Haitai's David Martinez 15–7 in four innings to put Huons 2–1 up.
- Choi Sung-won finished it off, beating Kim Im-kwon 11–3 in five innings.
- Huons go top on 13 points (four wins, one loss), with Crown Haitai second on 11. Huons have now won eight of the last nine meetings between the two clubs across two seasons.
- Elsewhere today, NH NongHyup Card beat Hana Card 4–0 and SY beat Woori Financial Capital 4–2. Huons play High1 Resort tomorrow at 12:00 Korean time, which is 03:00 UK.
Nanjing: Wilson and Fan set up a semi-final
The snooker this morning was compelling. Kyren Wilson beat Ding Junhui 6–4. Ding opened with a 99 and later made a 137, the best break of the match, but he never managed two frames in a row, and Wilson closed it out with a 56 in the tenth. According to Totally Snookered, it ended a run of three straight defeats to Ding, makes this Wilson's best International Championship, and takes his winning run on the tour to ten matches after his Northern Ireland Open title. They also report that the defeat costs Ding his place in the top 16.
On the other table, Fan Zhengyi beat Hossein Vafaei 6–3. That puts Fan in his first ranking semi-final since he won the 2022 European Masters, as WST noted. Vafaei won the opening frame from 72–4 down, laying three snookers and then winning it on the re-spotted black, per TNT Sports. Fan had made a 111 in frame two, and after Vafaei's 118 put him 2–1 down, he took five of the next six frames. Vafaei won an eighth frame that lasted almost an hour, but Fan finished the job in the ninth.
Wilson v Fan is the first semi-final tomorrow, best of 17 over two sessions. The afternoon quarter-finals started at 11:30 UK. Marco Fu against John Higgins and Chang Bingyu against Zhao Xintong are under way as we publish. We'll have both results in tonight's roundup.
Grassroots: Myanmar's inter-region championship
There's something for amateur-scene watchers from Yangon as well. Myanmar's Inter-State/Region Billiards and Snooker Competition is on at the National Sports Stadium in Thuwunna, with 15-red and 6-red snooker, 9-ball and English billiards on the same programme. Results from Tuesday, per the Global New Light of Myanmar, included Kaung Zan Htet (Magway) beating Ye Yint Hmu (Mon) 3–2 at 15-red and Ko Ko Chit (Kayin) edging Aung Naing Soe (Yangon) 4–3 at 6-red. In the women's 9-ball, Khon San (Shan) won 5–4. Admission is free, and play started again at 10:00 local this morning.
Coming up: the WNT goes to South-East Asia
- Universal Open Ho Chi Minh, 11–15 Nov: a 128-player World Nineball Tour Silver event at Sniper Billiards Club with $63,000 in prize money. It's double elimination down to the last 64, then knockout, with a race-to-13 final. Registration is open and the confirmed field hasn't been published yet. Duong Quoc Hoang, who comes from Ho Chi Minh City, is the obvious home hope.
- Universal Open Bangkok, 17–21 Nov: at S1 Pool Hall & Sport Bar, $69,400. After that the tour heads to Orlando for the Mosconi Cup, 27–30 Nov.
Where to watch this afternoon and tonight (UK times)
- Nanjing QFs (Fu v Higgins, Chang v Zhao): live now on TNT Sports / HBO Max and Eurosport, with WST Play and Huya elsewhere. Live scores on the usual results services.
- Pan American Heyball Open, Arequipa: the men's opening round starts at 15:00 UK, with Jordan Shepherd v David Gonzales and Lee Stephens v Victor Aiza in the first batch. Radoslaw Babica, Stephen Ellis and Aamir Sohail play later in the afternoon, and Alexander O'Donoghue and Arfan Dad are in the last batch of the day. Draw and scores on CueScore.
- National Shootout, Cherokee: last 16 from 15:00 UK on the Ultimate Pool USA YouTube channel, with the bracket on DigitalPool. Atencio v Waddingham is at 17:15.
- Yanggu: the Q round is next, all on Soop.
Can Song Yun Do, still a schoolboy, get past Takeshima and into a main draw with Cho and Jaspers? And is Fan good enough to stop Wilson's run? Let me know below.
Reggie Rutherford
Feature image: “2019-7 Three-Cushion World Cup-Scoreboard-01” by Carambol, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.
