South Korea, 23 September, 2025 – The third stage of the PBA Team League 2025-2026 concluded dramatically on September 22, with Vietnam’s Tran Duc Minh delivering a strong performance for Harim Dragons despite the team’s narrow 3-4 loss to Legend.
In the opening doubles match, Tran Duc Minh partnered with Kim Jun-tae against the formidable pair of Choi Sung-won and Javier Palazon. Both opponents were proven world-class players: Choi, a Korean star, is a former world champion and World Cup winner under the Union Mondiale de Billard (UMB), while Palazon of Spain is also a former World Cup champion and one of the top foreign players in Korea’s PBA circuit.
Despite the high-profile opposition, Duc Minh and Jun-tae showed excellent tactical discipline and capitalized on key opportunities. The pair closed the match with a brilliant five-point run in the fifth inning, sealing an 11-6 victory to give Harim Dragons an early lead.
The momentum, however, did not last. Legend fought back across the following matches, leveling the score at 3-3 and forcing a decisive seventh match. In the final singles encounter, Duc Minh was once again called upon, but he was unable to overcome his opponent. Legend eventually prevailed 4-3, leaving Harim Dragons to rue a missed chance despite their strong start.
Elsewhere in the final round of Stage 3, Vietnamese players also made their mark. Veteran Ma Minh Cam and his NH Pay teammates earned a dramatic 4-3 victory over Winners, while Nguyen Quoc Nguyen helped Hana Card edge Laon 4-2. In another tight contest, SK Direct defeated SY Builders 4-3.
With that result, SK Direct — featuring Vietnam’s Ngo Dinh Nai — emerged as the overall champions of Stage 3, finishing with 23 points. NH Pay ended second with 19 points, while Hana Card secured third place with 18 points.
The conclusion of Stage 3 also confirmed the three teams advancing to the season-ending finals of the PBA Team League 2025-2026. The finalists include Hana Card (winners of Stage 1), Phoenix (winners of Stage 2), and SK Direct (winners of Stage 3). These three teams will now prepare for the showdown that will decide the league’s ultimate champion.
For Vietnam’s billiards fans, the stage finale was bittersweet. While Tran Duc Minh, Ma Minh Cam, Nguyen Quoc Nguyen, and Ngo Dinh Nai all demonstrated their quality on Korean soil, their teams’ results varied. Still, the performances of Vietnamese cueists in one of the world’s most competitive professional billiards leagues underscored the growing stature of Vietnam in the international carom scene.
Khanh An
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