Yee Chun Leong
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN
NATIONAL cueist Ahmad Taufiq Murni stumbled in the group stage of the Hanoi Open Pool Championship 2024 earlier this week.
He had a rough start falling 9-1 against Vietnam's Nguyen Van Hai in his first match at the Hanoi Indoor Games Gymnasium.
Taufiq bounced back to beat Australia's Matt Edwards 8-4 and made it back-to-back victories dispatching UK's Marcel Price 8-5.
He took down another Vietnamese Le Quang Trung 8-4 but was stopped in his tracks in the next game.
Nguyen Dang Tuyen ended Taufiq's chance of progressing into the last-64 with a 9-6 win.
He failed to replicate his performance at the same competition last year where he finished in the top-16 out of 256 players.
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Taufiq was disappointed not to advance further this time around but felt he will require more games under this belt.
"I will need to play more WNT (World 9-Ball Tour) games," said Taufiq in an interview with BruSports News.
"As for my game, there were lots of ups and downs as I kept adjusting to the table.
"The conditions were very tough but I just had to play my own game. It's unfortunate as in the last game I missed a few chances," continued the 36-year-old.
When asked on what's next on the calendar, Taufiq replied: "Maybe the Chinese Taipei Open and also the Kuching 10-ball competition before the end of the year."
He concluded by thanking his sponsors HiTune and Yakin for making his trip to the Vietnam capital possible.