Cho Jae-ho, Sanchez, Choi Sung-won among upsets in PBA round of 64

Several top contenders suffered early exits in the Professional Billiards Association tour on Thursday.

Cho Jae-ho, Daniel Sanchez of Spain, Choi Sung-won and Kim Jun-tae were all eliminated in the round of 64 of the men's PBA division at the 2026-2027 season's fifth tour event — the Jal Saneun Bangbeop ZGM NH NongHyup Card PBA-LPBA Championship — held at the Kintex PBA Stadium in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province. The upset-heavy trend from the fourth tour's round of 64 carried over into this event.

Cho lost to Kim Nam-su by a set score of 1-3. He dropped the first set 7-15, leveled the match by taking the second 15-6, but fell in the third and fourth sets 9-15 and 4-15, respectively. Sanchez was swept 0-3 by fellow Spaniard Antonio Montes, who posted an average of 2.045 to overwhelm Sanchez, who managed only 0.900.

Choi fell to Oh Tae-jun and Kim Jun-tae lost to Ton Viet Hoang Minh of Vietnam, both in tiebreakers. Nguyen Quoc Nguyen of Vietnam, winner of the previous fourth tour event, also bowed out in the round of 64, losing 1-3 to Kim Kwan-woo.

Kang Dong-gung advanced to the round of 32 with a 3-1 win over Yoo Chang-sun. Kim Young-won swept Park Heung-sik 3-0, and David Martinez of Spain defeated Bang Jeong-geuk 3-1. Lee Chung-bok, Jo Geon-hwi, David Zapata of Spain and Murat Naci Coklu of Turkey also moved through to the round of 32.

In the women's LPBA round of 16, held the same day, Kim Ga-young defeated Han Ji-eun 3-2 in sets to reach the quarterfinals. Kim scored a perfect cue — clearing all points in a set within a single inning — in the first set, then traded sets with Han before closing out the fifth set 9-0.

Park Jeong-hyeon, Lee Mi-rae, Kim Bo-mi, Kang Yu-jin, Lee Seon-yeong and Lee Ma-ri also advanced to the LPBA quarterfinals. Jung Su-bin, who claimed her first career title at the previous event, suffered a comeback defeat, losing 2-3 to Im Jeong-suk.