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 considered the greatest Asian player of all time.
Chinese pro-snooker player, Liu Zhiyuan, was introduced to the sport by his father, who was an avid snooker fan. 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. 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. Ding is also a former three-time UK Champion. Ding started his professional career at the age of sixteen and has amassed more than 500 century records during his career. However, his recent absences have had an adverse impact on Ding's match sharpness. Despite this, Ding has a huge 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 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 currently ranks ninth in the world. Since 2017, he hasn't participated in any big-money ranking events.
The 34-year-old is a strong player. He has won more than $5 million in major tournaments. He won five ranking events tournaments in 2013-14 and made it to semifinals of Ladbrokes World Grand Prix. However, he lost to Barry Hawkins (and Shaun Murphy) in the quarter-finals.
In 2019, Ding won ten matches, and has compiled ten centuries breaks. Moreover, Ding has reached the semifinals of the 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, and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. In the semifinals of the Shangai Masters, he scored seven centuries.
At the age of 18 he won the Chinese National Championship. This made him the youngest player in the World to have six maximum breaks. He rose seven spots in his ranking to become the ninth best snooker player on the planet.
Before that, Ding remained in the top 16 of the rankings. Ding fell from the top 16 eventually. Ding has been a regular in the Asian Snooker scene all his life.