Star of the east - Ding Junhui
Ding Junhui is a Chinese snooker player, recognized worldwide for his composure and marvellous skills. Ding has been china’s most successful cueist ever.
Ding is the only teenager after John Higgins to win three ranking events. World number 4 started to play snooker at the age of nine. Realizing Ding’s potential to become a class player, his parents sold their house to finance Ding’s snooker career. Ding
and Mark Allen share the same story as both cue-men proved their parents right.
Ding has natural and divine snooker skills; it took him only five seasons to cumulate 100 centuries. His fast paced journey to the world snooker scene started in 2002, when he participated in the Asian under-21 championship and IBSF world under-21 championship,
becoming the youngest ever snooker player to win world under-21 championship at the age of fifteen.
Turning professional in 2003 Ding became china’s number one snooker player, and a much appreciated and well known sportsman.
Ding was awarded a wild card entry into the Masters in 2004, where he was able to pull off an upset by beating Joe Perry who was world number 16 at the time. However, he lost to Stephen Lee in the next round after a close match. It was then that the snooker
critics and fans realized his capabilities to bring defeat to any player’s closet.
Ding grabbed his first ranking championship title in 2005 China open by producing a quality play, beating Stephen Hendry 9-5, when he was 4-1 down moments ago. An astounding audience of 110 million watched the final match on China’s national sports channel,
the biggest TV audience recorded in the history of snooker.
His second title came in the same year when he broke through the walls of world top 16 players, and made it to the finals of the 2005 UK championship. Ding’s opponent in the final match was the legendary Steve Davis.
It was a match between prolific youth and a seasoned legend with vast experience, Ding was able to get the better of Steve by defeating him ten frames to six. Ding was the first player ever from outside England and Ireland to have won that particular title.
After winning the UK titles Ding proved his class, potential and composure as his rankings improved from 60 to 27.
2005 UK championship was the event where Ding actually got the attention of the snooker fans, critics and top snooker players. After defeating a player 30 years senior than himself, he was nicknamed the “the dragon ball.”
The Chinese sensation reached the final of the Northern Ireland trophy, a ranking tournament. On August 19th 2006 the 19-year-old Ding beat Ronnie O’Sullivan in the final of the event and claimed his third title before his 20th birthday.
Ding shares this record with Ronnie and Higgins. After winning Northern Ireland trophy he moved on to the fifth spot in the world rankings.
He is first Asian to claim this spot in international rankings and the youngest ever player to score a maximum break of 147 during a televised session, before him the record was held by Ronnie O’Sullivan.
The 2007/2008 season was a little slow for Ding as he was knocked out of two tournaments consecutively in the first rounds. However, he made a good come back in 2009/2010 season by reaching the quarter-finals of Shanghai masters.
Later in the year 2009 Ding reached the final of the UK championship, the second highest ranked tournament after world snooker championship. Ding proved to be venomous once again, beating John Higgins with a score-line of ten frames to eight. Ding claimed
his second UK champion titles.
His ranking tournament victories include – China open 2005, UK championship 2005 and 2009, Northern Ireland trophy 2006.
The star of the east has been glimmering for years and many snooker experts believe that Ding is the future world champion. Indeed Ding has all the capabilities and skills to keep shining for years to come.
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