Ding Junhui is also known as Enter Dragon and is one of most successful snooker player in the world. He has won 14 major tournaments and reached the final of the World Championship twice. He is actually the most successful Asian tennis player 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 child, he was a member of the Shanghai national team in snooker and has been a great success back home.
In 2007, Ding became the youngest player in history to make a televised 147 break. In the same year, he won the IBSF World Under-21 Championship. 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 14 major ranking titles in his career. Ding 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 absences in recent years have had a negative impact on his match sharpness. Ding still has a large social media following 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. He also won his first all-Asian final against Marco Fu.
Ding, despite the success of his homeland, has not been in a position to keep his title as the top snooker player. In the last six years, his career has been in decline. He is currently ranked ninth around the globe. And he has not played in a big money ranking event since 2017.
The 34-year old has a solid resume. In total, he has won almost $5 million in major tournaments. He won five ranking events tournaments in 2013-14 and made it to semifinals of Ladbrokes World Grand Prix. But he lost to Barry Hawkins and Shaun Murphy in the quarter-finals.
During the 2019 season, he has won ten matches and compiled ten century breaks. Ding has also reached semifinals of Ladbrokes Players Tour Championship. Therefore, it is probable that Ding will return to January's World Championship.
He has also managed to defeat the 16 world's top players. He defeated Joe Perry (Mark Williams), James Cahill (James Cahill), and Thepchaiya U-Nooh. Moreover, he made seven centuries in the semi-finals of 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 was ranked in the top 16 rankings before that. He fell out of the top 16 eventually. Throughout his career, Ding has been a fixture in the Asian snooker scene.