Ding Junhui, also known as Enter the Dragon, is one of the most successful snooker players in the world. He has won 14 major tournaments during his career, and has reached the final of two World Championships. He is actually the most successful Asian tennis player in history.
Chinese pro-snooker player, Liu Zhiyuan, was introduced to the sport by his father, who was an avid snooker fan. He went to the Shanghai national snooker team as a child and has been a major success in the home country.
Ding became the youngest player to ever make a live televised 147 break in 2007 He also won the IBSF World Under-21 Championship in the same year. This was his first professional title and he was ranked as a world number nine at the end of the 2006-07 season.
Ding has won a total fourteen major ranking titles over the course of his career. He is also the three-time UK Champion. Ding began playing professionally at sixteen years old and has recorded more than 500 century breaks during his entire career. Unfortunately, Ding's absences in recent times have had a detrimental impact on his match-sharpness. Ding still has a large social media following in China.
Ding reached the final of China Open at 18 years old and was then the first player from Ireland and Great Britain to win a ranking trophy. He beat Marco Fu in the all-Asian final.
Ding, despite the success of his homeland, has not been in a position to keep his title as the top snooker player. His career has taken a downward turn in the past six years. Currently, he is ranked ninth in the world. Since 2017, he has not been in a major ranking event.
However, the 34-year-old has a strong resume. He has won nearly $5 million in major tournaments. He won five ranking tournament tournaments during the 2013-14 season and reached the semifinals at the Ladbrokes World Grand Prix. In the quarter-finals, he was defeated by Shaun Murphy and Barry Hawkins.
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. He is expected to return to the World Championship in January.
He has also managed to defeat the 16 world's top players. He defeated Joe Perry and Mark Williams, James Cahill and Thepchaiya un-Nooh. He even made seven centuries at the Shangai Masters semi-finals.
At 18 years of age, he won China's National Championship. He became the youngest player to record six maximum breaks. His ranking went up seven spots to make him the ninth-best international snooker players.
Ding was ranked in the top 16 rankings before that. Eventually, however, he fell out of the top 16. Throughout his career, Ding has been a fixture in the Asian snooker scene.