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 and reached the final of the World Championship twice. He is considered to be one of the most successful Asian players in history.
Chinese pro snooker star, Hao Zhiqiu, was introduced by his father to the game at eight. He was a snooker enthusiast. As a youngster, he attended the Shanghai national snooker club and was a huge success in his home country.
Ding was the youngest player to achieve a televised break of 147 in history 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 14 major ranking titles in his career. He is also the three-time UK Champion. Ding has more than 500 century break records throughout his career, having started playing professionally when he was sixteen. His match sharpness has been affected by his absences over the past few years. Ding, however, has a large following on social media in China.
At age 18, Ding reached the final of the China Open and then became the first player from outside Great Britain and Ireland to win a ranking title. Ding also beat Marco Fu to win his first all-Asian final.
Despite the success of his home country, Ding has not been able to maintain his status as the number one snooker player in the world. Ding's career has fallen in six years. He currently ranks 9th in the world. He hasn't played in any major ranking event since 2017.
The 34-year-old is a strong player. He has won more than $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.
During the 2019 season, he has won ten matches and compiled ten century breaks. Ding reached the semifinals in the Ladbrokes Players Tour Championship. Ding is likely to return to January's World Championship.
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.
He won the Chinese National Championship at 18 and became the youngest player ever to achieve six maximum break records. His ranking climbed seven places to rank him as the ninth-best snooker player worldwide.
Before that, Ding remained in the top 16 of the rankings. He fell out of the top 16 eventually. Throughout his career, Ding has been a fixture in the Asian snooker scene.