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.
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.
