At present, the World Championship Qualifier, one of the most important events of the year in Snooker, is in full swing. For China's Ding Junhui, the World Championship is the most missing and important piece of the puzzle in his brilliant career. However, due to the downturn in the past two seasons, Ding Junhui, who has already fallen out of the ranks of the world's top 16 first-class masters, has even lost the qualification to directly participate in the world championship, and the former world number one player has to start from the qualification tournament. However, Ding Junhui's former prestige is still there, and although he needs to start from the qualification round, he has enjoyed the treatment of a seed player who is not a world championship seed player. It seems that despite the current poor record, the world snooker community still recognizes this Chinese snooker brother very much.
When it comes to Chinese snooker, it is impossible to avoid Ding Junhui, and it is under his influence that Chinese snooker sports have changed from an unpopular sport to a relatively popular sport that has a considerable status in the world snooker industry. Ding Junhui's position at that time was like Yao Ming's for Chinese basketball, Liu Xiang's for Chinese athletics, and Li Na's for Chinese tennis. Under the impetus of Ding Junhui, many young people began to engage in this sport. Today, the young people who have been deeply influenced by him are beginning to have good results in the world snooker world and have set some historical records. For example, Yan Bingtao became the world's strongest post-00 player, the first post-00 to win the three major championships, and Zhao Xintong became the first post-90s player to win the three major championships.
However, it is a pity that Ding Junhui has been in a deep slump for the past two seasons. It's been a long time since he won a ranking tournament, and his world ranking has changed from a long time ago to about 30 today. As a result of the long-term sluggish record, Ding Junhui even lost the qualification to participate directly in the world championship main tournament, and had to start from the third round of the qualification tournament, and needed to win two consecutive victories in the qualifiers to participate in the world championship main tournament.
According to the relevant rules of the World Championships, the top 16 players in the world ranking do not need to participate in the qualification round, directly enter the main tournament as seeded players, and then play against the players who play from the qualification round. Young Chinese players Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao enjoyed such treatment, waiting for work and directly entering the main tournament as seeded players. However, although Ding Junhui is not a seeded player, he still needs to win two consecutive victories in the qualifiers to participate in the main tournament. But he has enjoyed the treatment that some seeded players have not had, that is, full recognition of him.
According to the convention, such a competition, before the competition, there will be a list of winners, this list reflects the strength of these players in everyone's mind. This can be seen from Robertson, who is currently the number one favorite to win the championship. Logically, Robertson is not ranked first in the world, but his current strength and form are the best at the moment, so he has become the biggest favorite to win the championship. After him, there was Trump, who was previously known as the first person after the 80s. After him, they were O'Sullivan, Selby, Higgins, Wilson and other world top masters. Chinese player Zhao Xintong ranks 7th in the favorite to win the championship, which shows that Zhao Xintong, who has won two championships this season, is indeed very different from before. Behind Zhao Xintong is another Chinese player, Yan Bingtao, in 8th place.
Behind Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao, we saw the name of a Chinese player, that is, Ding Junhui. Ding Junhui and Mark Allen are tied for 9th place. Judging from the ranking of this favorite to win the championship, Ding Junhui is the only player to participate in the qualification round, the only non-seeded player. To be honest, judging from the current world ranking and status of Ding Junhui, the top ten is indeed a bit of a surprise. However, this also reflects the recognition of him by the world snooker community from one side.
After all, Ding Junhui's strength is very strong, he is currently only in a slump, once he comes out of the slump, he is still a world-class player. This season, fans can feel the recovery of Ding Junhui's state. The World Championship is his dream all along, and we believe that Ding Junhui can get out of the previous downturn and return to the peak. And this World Championship is likely to become a time for him to realize his dreams. Finally, I wish Ding Junhui good results.