Local players Van Quyet and Tang Tuan each scored a brace to help their clubs score wins in the fourth round of Vietnam’s top-flight Super League Sunday, giving football fans some hope for the country’s sport amid the complete hegemony foreign strikers seem to have over goal-scoring in the top leagues.

Quyet’s double earned a home win for the 2010 champions Hanoi T&T over Kien Giang, and the capital-based club continue to top the league with 10 points.

Quyet is now in a group of three players with four goals from four rounds. The other two are Nigerian striker Timothy Anjembe of Hanoi FC and German striker Felix Luz.

Tuan scored two of Binh Duong’s three goals in their home win over Hanoi FC at the Go Dau Stadium.

Anjembe scored the opener for the visitors before another Nigerian striker, Udo Fortune, scored the equalizer.

In other action, defending champs Song Lam Nghe An (SLNA) drew 1-1 away with 2009 champs Da Nang, and hosts Dong Thap beat Khanh Hoa 3-1 at the Cao Lanh Stadium.

In early matches on Saturday, hosts Hoang Anh Gia Lai, the 2003-04 champs, lost 0-2 to Navibank Saigon.

Ninh Binh beat visitors Thanh Hoa 1-0 while Saigon FC crushed Vicem Hai Phong 4-0 at Ho Chi Minh City’s Thong Nhat Stadium to finish in second place with eight points.

SLNA are in sixth place with six points in the 14-team Super League while Vicem Hai Phong are at the bottom with just two points.

Vietnam’s Nguyen Hoang Thien and Hong Kong’s Wong Chun Hun won the International Tennis Federation (ITF)’s Under-18 Grade 3 competition in Auckland, New Zealand on Friday.

The Thien/Wong duo combined well to beat Australia’s Allan/Horton 6-3, 6-2 in the boys’ doubles final match.

Earlier, Thien/Wong beat the host’s Smith/ Stoica and Gage Brown/Southon combinations and followed it up with victories over Thai pair Plodpai/Wiriyajanyong in the quarterfinals and Australia’s Delaney/Polmans in the semifinals.

This is the first title of the year for Vietnam’s Thien, ranked 76th in the world’s juniors rankings. He bowed out in the boys’ singles category at the event after losing 6-3, 1-6, 1-6 to South Korean rival Kang Ku Keon, who is 124 places lower than him in world rankings.

It has been noticed that of late, Thien often wins the first set but loses the next two to lose to players ranked lower than him.

Thien’s father Nguyen Ngoc Minh said he would discuss the problem with his French coaches Marcel Dominique Petit and Tom Kindavong.

Vietnam’s number one chess player Le Quang Liem lost to the world female champion, Chinese Hou Yifan, in the eighth round of the 2012 Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival on Tuesday.

With advantage of playing white pieces, the 25th seeded Hou Yifan launched relentless attacks and beat fifth seeded Liem after 40 moves.

The win gave 18-year-old Hou Yifan 6.5 points, as she moved into a tie for second place with third seeded Englishman Michael Adams. They are followed by a group of 14 players with 6 points each.

The loss pushed the 20-year-old Liem from 4th to 17th place in the third leading group of 19 players with 5.5 points each.

Grandmaster Liem will next clash with Slovenian International master Anna Muzychuk, seeded 32nd at the event, and currently in 29th position.

GM Liem is now one point adrift of the leader and there are only two more rounds to go, so it is impossible for him to fight for the championship. It will even be difficult for him to finish the tournament among the top 10.

The 10th annual Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival (January 24-February 2) has attracted 256 players from 60 countries around the world.

The draw for the 2012 ASEAN Futsal (indoor football) competition held last Sunday in Kuala Lumpur saw Vietnam placed in Group A with Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines.

It is a fairly good draw for Vietnam because the only strong rivals in the group are Malaysia.

Regional powerhouse Thailand are in Group B against a strong Indonesia besides Brunei and Timor-Leste.

The 2012 AFF Futsal tournament will be held in Bangkok from April 17 to 22.

Also at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur Sunday, the organizers held a draw for this year’s AFF Women’s Futsal event.

Vietnam are again in Group A which also has Myanmar, Singapore, and the Philippines.

Thailand will take on Laos, Indonesia, and Malaysia in Group B.

Vietnam will host the women’s event in Ho Chi Minh City from September 12 to 22.

Violence on and off the pitch marked the quarterfinal action in the 2012 National Cup football in Vietnam Sunday.

At Ho Chi Minh City’s Thong Nhat Stadium, visitors Thanh Hoa looked better than hosts Saigon FC in the first half, and scored within eight minutes of the start.

But Saigon played much better in the second half and scored thrice to book a berth in the semifinals.

In the dying moments of the match, Thanh Hoa players chased Huynh Kesley of Saigon, and had Da Silva and Sunday sent off as a result.

Thanh Hoa’s central fullback Bat Hieu was also involved in the fracas but was not sent off. Le Xuan Anh of Thanh Hoa even provoked the host fans into violence.

After the match, the two teams’ supporters were involved in pitched battles inside and outside the stadium. Security personnel managed to restore order, but it was several hours before the visitors could be escorted from the stadium by the police.

Earlier in the day a seesaw match between hosts Song Lam Nghe An (SLNA) and Ninh Binh at Vinh Stadium ended in an exciting 3-3 draw, before SLNA won 5-4 from penalties.

But again the pitch resembled a martial arts arena. Ngo Hoang Thinh of SLNA and Sanogo Moussa of Ninh Bình were sent off early in the first half for fighting each other. Nguyen Duc Huy of Ninh Binh was sent off in the final minutes of the match for attacking a player of the hosts.

In other action, Da Nang, the 2009 V-League (now renamed the Super League)champions crushed Kien Giang 3-0 at home.

First Division club Binh Dinh lost 1-3 at home to 2010 V-League champions Hanoi T&T.

Vietnam has been chosen to host the playoff round of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Qualifiers for the 2012 London Games from March 25 to 31.

Previously, Malaysia had been chosen but facilities there did not meet the requirements, so AFC decided to move the venue to Hanoi.

Currently, only the first leg matches of the third qualifying round have been played and it is not clear which teams will go to Vietnam for their playoff matches.

Japan, South Korea and Uzbekistan are leading the three groups, followed by Oman, Iraq and Syria. The second-placed teams will play their playoff matches in Vietnam.

However, Qatar and Australia still have a chance to finish in second places to travel to Vietnam for the playoff round.

In the second qualifying round, Vietnam lost 6-1 to Saudi Arabia, who has no chance to go any farther than round 3.

As a rule, the three top teams from Asia automatically qualify for the London Olympics with the fourth place team competing against the fourth best team from Africa, which is Senegal this year.

The second-placed teams in the three groups in Asia will play round robin style playoff matches in Vietnam and the best team will play Senegal in the English city of Coventry on April 12.

Vietnam’s top chess player Grandmaster Le Quang Liem remains in the leading group in the Masters category of the Gibraltar Open after a fifth-round draw with Englishman Nigel Short Saturday.

Short, 48, playing white, normally a big advantage, attacked straightaway, putting the 20-year-old Vietnamese under relentless pressure.

But the 29th-ranked, fifth-seeded Liem managed to draw to remain in sixth position with 4 points, one place below Short who is also on 4 points.

Third-seeded Englishman Michael Adams surged to top spot with 4.5 points after beating Italian Brunello Sabino.

The top four players all have 4.5 points and the next 19 have 4 points.

China’s 25th seeded woman player Hou Yifan fell from the top spot to 20th after losing to India’s  11th seeded GM Krishnan Sasikiran.

Top-seeded Russian Peter Svidler is now in 26th place after losing to female compatriot GM Kosintseva Nadezhda.

In the next round, Liem will clash with American GM Varuzhan Akobian who is in 19th place.

The 10th edition of the annual Tradewise Gibraltar Chess Festival from January 24 to February 2 has attracted 256 players from 60 countries.

Vietnam’s best young tennis player Nguyen Hoang Thien Wednesday left Australia to compete at the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Under-18 Grade 3 competition in New Zealand.

The 16-year-old Thien, ranked 71st in the ITF juniors rankings, was the second seed in the qualifying round for the Australian Open. He got a bye to the second round where he beat the host’s Rhys Michael Johnson (ranked 675th in the juniors rankings) 6-3, 7-5.

After winning the first set 7-5 in his next match against Japanese rival Onishi Ken, ranked 97th in the juniors rankings, Thien wilted in the heat and lost the next two sets 1-6, 6-3. The loss meant he failed to qualify for the Australia Open juniors 2012.

Thien said, “I’m not pleased with my achievements at the Australian Open, but the lesson I learned at the tournament will help me get better results at coming contests.”

Thien is top seed at the ITF U-18 Grade 3 contest that will be played in Auckland from January 30 till February 4.

Hoang Xuan Vinh has become the first ever Vietnamese shooter to win an official Olympics berth.

Vinh won 682.4 points in the men’s 10-meter air gun event on Monday at the January 11-22 Asian Shooting Championships in Doha, Qatar.

Vinh finished fourth behind the gold medal winner from South Korea, Jin Jong Oh with 689.6 points, silver medalist from China, Wang Zhiwei with 683.1 points and Japanese bronze medal winner Matsuda Tomoyuki with 682.7 points.

However, the 37-year-old Vinh won an Olympic berth because the other three medalists had already qualified for the London Games before.

Vietnamese shooters have been given berths at previous Olympic Games but they were only wild card entries for countries underdeveloped in sports.

Vinh is the eighth Vietnamese athlete to have won a London Olympics berth.

The other seven athletes are female judo martial artist Van Ngoc Tu, male badminton player Nguyen Tien Minh, female taekwondo martial artist Chu Hoang Dieu Linh and male taekwondo martial artist Le Huynh Chau, male gymnast Pham Phuoc Hung, female gymnast Phan Ha Thanh and male swimmer Hoang Quy Phuoc,

Vietnam has set itself a target of winning 25 Olympic berths including wild card entries.