Binh made a good start to finish the first set 101-97, but dropped two successive sets, 9-100 and 19-100.

His great effort in the last match was in vain as he was narrowly beaten, 96-100.

Earlier in the semi-finals, Binh had a convincing 3-2 win against stronger opponent, Peter Edward from Singapore.

Binh’s brother Thanh Long, who also attended the same event, could only manage to reach the quarter-finals.

Three kickboxers, Nguyen Van Su, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Dung and Nguyen Thi Mai, successfully advanced to the finals of different kickboxing events.

In the men’s U74kg, Su thrashed Iran’s Abdulzahra 10-1 in the semi-finals to face Kuwait’s Husain Albanay, who fought hard to defeat a Kazakhstani opponent.

His teammate, Mai beat Khujaniuozova Shakhooza from Uzbekistan 3-0 in the women’s U65kg to face Tamara, also from Kazakhstan.

In the women’s U52kg Dung made it to the finale by thrashing Kim Minkuoung from the Republic of Korea (RoK).

However, three other martial artists, Phan Van Minh, Tran Thanh Y and Dao Thi Thoan, suffered losses in three semi-finals of the men’s U81kg and U71kg and women’s U55kg respectively to bag only three bronzes.

Despite being seeded No.2 and having beaten China 2.5-1.5 in the qualifying round of the rapid chess mixed team event, Vietnamese chess players could not maintain their performance and lost to their rival 1.5-2.5 in the semi-final.

Super Grandmaster Le Quang Liem’s victory against Ding Liren and Truong Son’s successful draw with stronger opponent Yu Yangyi were considered a great advantage for Vietnam, as the team only needed one draw in the remaining two matches to proceed to the final.

However, two female players, Thao Nguyen and Bao Tram failed to obtain the results and both lost, to Hou Yifan and Zhao Xue.

In the match for third place against Iran, Vietnam was held to a 2-2 draw but still pocketed a bronze medal as it has better sub-scores.

Earlier, the team dominated the qualifying round to win all five matches against China, Singapore, India, the Philippines and Uzbekistan.

On the final day of AIMAG (July 6), the team is scheduled to play its first match against Singapore in the blitz chess event, in which it was seeded No.2 after China.

VOV