Hoang Nam Ly won the last point at 11-10 in the third game, and the My Dinh crowd went with him. His win over the second seed set the tone for a quarterfinal Friday full of rematches and firsts.
HOANG NAM LY✓
CHRISTIAN ALSHONThursday's results
Ly (VIE), the reigning Hangzhou Open champion, beat Christian Alshon (USA), the reigning Panas Malaysia Cup champion, 12-10, 0-11, 12-10 in the Men's Singles round of 16. Eunggwon Kim (KOR) and Hong Kit Wong (HKG) dismantled Tyson McGuffin and Riley Newman (USA) 11-5, 11-2 in Men's Doubles, McGuffin's first Men's Doubles loss in Asia after back-to-back 2025 Cup golds with Eric Oncins. Anna Leigh Waters (USA) made her PPA Tour Asia debut with straight-game wins in Women's Doubles with Anna Bright and Mixed Doubles with Ben Johns (USA).
Jimmy Liong (MAS) reached the Men's Singles round of 16, where top seed Federico Staksrud (ARG) beat him 11-2, 11-2. Liong and Roman Estareja (MAS) lost 13-11, 11-8 to Marco Leung (MAC) and Zefeng Li (CHN) in the Men's Doubles round of 32.
Friday order of play
Pei-Chuan Kao (TPE) meets Kaitlyn Christian (USA) in a Women's Singles quarterfinal, a rematch of their MB Vietnam Cup round of 16, where Christian, the PPA Tour's world No. 3, dropped six points in two games. Wong plays world No. 2 Staksrud in a first singles meeting: Wong the Hong Kong Open champion and Hangzhou runner-up, Staksrud the Hangzhou semifinalist who lost to Ly.
Ly faces Tama Shimabukuro (USA), whom he leads 2-0 without dropping a game, on the home soil where he has medaled at each of his last five stops. Hien Truong (VIE) meets Mitchell Hargreaves (AUS) in a first PPA Tour Asia singles meeting.
Ting Chieh Wei (TPE) and Yufei Long (CHN), Women's Doubles gold medalists together at the Sansan Fukuoka Open, are partners again and face Christian and Callie Smith (USA). In Men's Doubles, world No. 1 pairing Gabriel Tardio (BOL) and Johns meet Joseph Wild and George Wall (AUS), while Kim and Wong, the most consistent Men's Doubles partnership of 2025 without a gold to show for it, face Shimabukuro and Jonathan Truong (USA).
Next on the tour
Semifinals Saturday, Championship Sunday to follow. Schedules are on events.thepicklebase.com.