Ding Junhui also known to the world as Enter the Dragon, has been one of the most successful players in snooker. 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 the most successful Asian player ever.
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.
In 2007, Ding became the youngest player in history to make a televised 147 break. He was also the winner of the IBSF World Under-21 Championship. He won his first professional title, and was ranked at the top of the world at number nine by the end 2006-07 season.
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 still has a large social media following 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, despite the success of his homeland, has not been in a position to keep his title as the top snooker player. Ding's career has fallen in six years. He is currently ranked 9th in the World. And he has not played in a big money ranking event since 2017.
But, the 34 year-old has a strong resume. He has won nearly $5 million in major tournaments. He won five ranking events tournaments in 2013-14 and made it to semifinals of 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. Ding also reached the semifinals at the Ladbrokes Players Tour Championship. He is expected to return to the World Championship in January.
He has also been able to defeat the world's top 16 best players. He defeated Joe Perry, Mark Williams, James Cahill, and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. In addition, he achieved seven centuries during the semi-finals in the Shangai Masters.
At 18 years of age, he won China's National Championship. He became the youngest player to record six maximum breaks. After that, his ranking increased by seven spots to become the ninth-best snooker player in the world.
Ding had remained in the top 16 ranks for a while before this. However, Ding was eventually dropped from the top 16. Ding has been a regular in the Asian Snooker scene all his life.