Eklent Kaci endured a shock defeat at the hands of Vietnamese qualifier Lo Van Xuan, while top seed Fedor Gorst was put through his paces as the Hanoi Open Pool Championship commenced.
Lo capitalised on an uncharacteristic performance from the world number two to pull off one of the greatest upsets in the World Nineball Tour’s history, banishing Kaci onto the one-loss side.
Kaci showed signs of vulnerability during the early exchanges and notably missed the nine ball for a 3-2 lead. Everything seemed difficult for the Albanian, and his Vietnamese opponent managed to maintain a buffer throughout.
Kaci crucially broke dry when only 8-7 behind but received another opportunity to force a decider. He shook his head at his safety attempt nonetheless, and Lo pocketed a sensational two-rail five-nine combination to complete a seismic upset.
Meanwhile, world number one Gorst battled back from three racks behind to beat Nguyen Hoang Phong in his opening match, before executing a four-nine combination on the outer tables in a hill-hill affair against Nguyen Duc Thang to remain undefeated.
Defending champion Jayson Shaw needed to battle for his place in winners’ qualification as he beat Hai Long Le 9-7 in a closely-contested match, while Francisco Sanchez Ruiz, Carlo Biado, Ko Ping-Chung and David Alcaide all advanced with relative ease.
Aloysius Yapp, the world number eleven, endured a second round defeat at the hands of Filipino Harry Vergara in a hill-hill contest, while Tyler Styer also faltered as he was defeated 9-7 by the dangerous Indonesian Edward Koyongian.
American Max Eberle pulled off two impressive results in beating Peri Open quarter-finalist Paolo Gallito 9-6 and Sam Henderson 9-7, while Billy Thorpe kept his Mosconi Cup hopes firmly intact with a nerveless 9-8 win over Desmond Goh.
New Zealand’s Matt Edwards was the biggest name to endure successive losses and therefore exit the tournament on day one, going down 9-7 to 1998 world champion Kunihiko Takahashi and 8-4 to Brunei’s Ahmad Taufiq.
Duong Quoc Hoang will get his debut Hanoi Open Championship campaign underway on Wednesday morning in the Vietnamese capital, while Kaci will be battling on the one-loss side to keep his hopes alive.
