Ding Junhui

Ding Junhui (Chinese: 丁俊晖; born 1 April 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He is the most successful Asian player in the history of the sport. Throughout his career, he has won 15 major ranking titles, including three UK Championships (2005, 2009, 2019), and in 2014, became the first Asian world number one. He has twice reached the final of the Masters, winning once in 2011. In 2016, he became the first Asian player to reach the final of the World Championship.

Ding began playing snooker at age nine and rose to international prominence in 2002 after winning the Asian Under-21 Championship and the Asian Championship. At age 15, he became the youngest winner of the IBSF World Under-21 Championship. In 2003, Ding turned professional at the age of 16. His first major professional successes came in 2005 when he won the China Open and the UK Championship, becoming the first player from outside Great Britain and Ireland to win the title.

During his career, he has compiled 700 century breaks, including seven maximum breaks, in professional play. He is the only Asian player to be ranked world number one, which he first achieved in 2014 to become the 11th player to reach the top spot. He is a long-time resident of Sheffield, England, and owns the Ding Junhui Snooker Academy in the same city.

Ding Junhui was born on 1 April 1987, in Yixing, Jiangsu. At eight years old, Ding accompanied his father, a pool enthusiast, who wanted to practice with a local pool expert. When his father went for a toilet break, Ding took the cue and played with the professional. Ding won the game before his father returned. Since then, Ding's parents supported him in cue sports training, particularly snooker. At age nine, he was taken by his father to the training centre of the Chinese national snooker team near Shanghai and persuaded his mother to sell their home and grocery business so Ding could continue playing snooker as a career. The family moved to Dongguan, Guangdong, and Ding left formal education at age 11 to practice snooker for eight hours each day.

Ding rose to international prominence in 2002 at age 15, when he won the Asian Under-21 Championship, the Asian Championship, and became the youngest ever winner of the IBSF World Under-21 Championship. He was unable to progress much in 2003 when both Asian tournaments were canceled because of the 2002–03 SARS virus outbreak, but he reached the semi-finals of the IBSF World Under-21 Championship, and the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) awarded him a concession to play on the main snooker tour, which enabled him to turn professional in September 2003. In the same year, Ding became the number-one-ranked player in China.

In February 2004, Ding was awarded a wildcard entry to the Masters held in London. In the wildcard round, he beat the world number 16 player Joe Perry. In the first round, he lost 5–6 to Stephen Lee after leading 5–2. In April 2005, Ding celebrated his 18th birthday by reaching the final of the China Open in Beijing, defeating world top 16 ranked players Peter Ebdon, Marco Fu, and Ken Doherty. In the final, Ding beat the world number three Stephen Hendry by 9–5 to win his first ranking tournament. The match was watched by 110 million people on China's national sports channel CCTV-5; it was the largest television audience recorded for a snooker match. In December 2005, Ding beat Jimmy White, Paul Hunter, and Joe Perry to reach the final of the UK Championship. In the final, he beat Steve Davis by 10–6 to become the first player from outside the UK to win the tournament. Ding's provisional world ranking rose from 62 at the start of the 2005–06 season to 27 at the end of the season.

At the 2006 China Open, Ding lost 2–6 in the semi-finals to eventual winner Mark Williams. During the Northern Ireland Trophy event, he beat Stephen Lee 6–1 in the semi-finals. In the final, Ding defeated Ronnie O'Sullivan 9–6 to win his third ranking tournament, becoming the third person under 20 to do so after O'Sullivan and John Higgins. In December 2006, Ding won three gold medals at the 2006 Asian Games, winning the single, double, and team snooker competitions. The following week, he reached the quarter-finals of the 2006 UK Championship as the defending champion, but lost 5–9 to his practice partner and eventual winner Peter Ebdon. Ding ended the 2006–07 season ranked world number nine, which was his first top-ten placement.

In January 2007, Ding defeated Cao Xinlong 5–4 to reach the final of the Chinese National Championship in his home town of Yixing, Jiangsu. He defeated Xiao Guodong in the final by 6–2 to become the national champion again. On 14 January, Ding made a 147 break in his first-round match against Anthony Hamilton at the Masters, which was Ding's first maximum break and the first maximum break made at the competition since Kirk Stevens' in 1984. The break made Ding the youngest player to make a televised 147—a record previously held by Ronnie O'Sullivan—and the first Chinese player to make a televised maximum. Ding played O'Sullivan in the final, becoming the second-youngest player and the first Asian player to reach a Masters' final.