How China played the long game in pursuit of greatness

Zhao Xintong’s Crucible triumph completed a journey that began with Ding Junhui 20 years ago

- Luke Baker

On 3 April 2005, a grinning Ding Junhui lifted the China Open trophy. Just two days after his 18th birthday, a shy, fresh-faced teenager had stunned the snooker world.

At the end of the tournament he had only entered as a wildcard in order to drive local interest in Beijing, Ding had become the second-youngest ranking event winner in snooker history, behind a certain Ronnie O’Sullivan.

And he’d done it the hard way. Solid pro Mark Davis had been dispatched in the wildcard round before former world champion Peter Ebdon, future world champion Stuart Bingham, future world No 5 Marco Fu and former world champion Ken Doherty were beaten en route to the final. In the showpiece, he faced the most successful snooker player of all time – the record seventime world champion Stephen Hendry.

Ding battled back from 4-1 down against Hendry and went on a tear to record a 9-5 triumph, to the delight of those packed inside the Wukesong Arena. It was later reported that 110 million people watched on TV in China, putting the oft-repeated stat about the 18.5 million that watched Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor’s black-ball shootout in the 1985 World Championship final on British TV into some perspective.

Snooker had gone global and the Chinese revolution was underway. Bold predictions started to fly. With uber-talent Ding at the vanguard, a generation of Chinese talent would be unleashed. The first Chinese world champion was only years away, Chinese players would dominate the world’s top 16 and the central hub of snooker would shift eastwards from the UK to the heart of Asia.