Ding Junhui, also known by Enter the Dragon is one the most successful snooker players worldwide. He has won 14 major tournaments in his career and has also made it to the final of the World Championship twice. In fact, he is considered to be the most successful Asian player in history.
Chinese pro-snooker player, Liu Zhiyuan, was introduced to the sport by his father, who was an avid snooker fan. As a child, he joined the Shanghai national Snooker team. He has been a big success in China.
Ding became the youngest player to ever make a live televised 147 break in 2007 Ding won the IBSF World Under-21 Championship the following year. He was awarded his first professional title. At the end of the 2006-07 seasons, he was ranked number nine in the world.
Ding has won fourteen major ranking titles during his career. He is also a three-time UK Champion. Ding has more than 500 century break records throughout his career, having started playing professionally when he was sixteen. However, his recent absences have had an adverse impact on Ding's match sharpness. Ding, however, has a large following on social media in China.
Ding reached 18 years of age and reached the China Open final. After that, he became the first player not from Great Britain or Ireland to win an international ranking title. He also defeated Marco Fu in his first all Asian final.
Ding's status as the top ranked snooker player has been lost despite the success of his country. His career has taken a downward turn in the past six years. Currently, he is ranked ninth in the world. And he has not played in a big money ranking event since 2017.
The 34-year-old is a strong player. In total, he has won almost $5 million in major tournaments. During the 2013-14 season, he won five ranking event tournaments and made it to the semifinals of the Ladbrokes World Grand Prix. However, he lost to Barry Hawkins (and Shaun Murphy) in the quarter-finals.
He has won ten matches during the 2019 season and recorded ten century breaks. Moreover, Ding has reached the semifinals of the Ladbrokes Players Tour Championship. Therefore, it is probable that Ding will return to January's World Championship.
He also beat the world's top 16 players. He defeated Joe Perry. James Cahill. Thepchaiya UN-Nooh. In addition, he achieved seven centuries during the semi-finals in the Shangai Masters.
He won the Chinese National Championship at 18 and became the youngest player ever to achieve six maximum break records. After that, his ranking increased by seven spots to become the ninth-best snooker player in the world.
Ding remained at the top 16 in the rankings prior to that. Eventually, however, he fell out of the top 16. Ding has been a prominent figure in Asian snooker throughout his career.