Ho Chi Minh City is the second World Cup of 2026

The World Cup cycle of 2026 opened in Bogota last month, Myung Woo Cho the winner and current world nr. 1. The second event of the season has a notoriously difficult qualification event preceding it, with a plethora of local talent. Ho Chi Minh has been played nine times already (since 2015), and it had classy winners like Caudron (twice), Merckx (twice), Tasdemir, Jaspers, Blomdahl, Q.C. Tran and the major surprise of 2024, Duc Minh Tran.  

For the 2026 edition, the UMB has seeded the following players: M.W. Cho, Jaspers, Merckx, Zanetti, Tasdemir, Q.C. Tran, Sidhom, Caudron, Horn, B. Karakurt, T.L. Tran, H.J. Kim, Bury, Ceulemans. The local wildcards were given to Nguyen Van Tri and Nguyen Tran Thanh Tu. The ACBC/UMB wildcard went to Mohamed Abdin. 

The tables in Ho Chi Minh are Hollywood, the cloth is Simonis 330 Prestige, the balls are Aramith Prestige. The usual ranking points are at stake: 80-54-36-26-18-10-8.  

All matches can be watched on Soop. Full results are available on the websites of Five & Six and the UMB.