It's really not easy, first suppress and then rise, there is no danger, full of momentum! In the early morning of April 13, Beijing time, a remarkable duel was staged in the fourth and final round of the 2022 World Snooker Championship qualification tournament in Sheffield, England. Ding Junhui, the 35-year-old representative of China's snooker, completed the Jedi counterattack in a very passive situation behind 4-7, winning 6 consecutive sets, and finally defeated veteran David Liri 10-7, passed the qualifying round after two consecutive wins, and advanced to the main world championship, which is also Ding Junhui's 16th consecutive year to qualify for the Crucible Theatre, which is also a remarkable achievement.
There are four rounds of qualifying for this World Championship, Ding Junhui is currently ranked 29th in the world, he can not directly qualify for the main tournament and enter the seed position like the TOP16 players, but also do not have to start from the first round of the qualifiers, but from the third round, that is, 80 into 48. In the first match, Ding Junhui ushered in the "director derby" with his friend Tian Pengfei (the two were the director and deputy director of the Chinese players' "Professional Players Committee in the UK"), and Ding Junhui won 6-4, just one step away from the main game.
In the past ding junhui's experience in the final round of the ranking qualifiers, his overall record was 2 wins and 1 loss, which means that he was once eliminated on the last day of the impact of the main tournament. However, this time his opponent is an amateur golfer without a world ranking, and david Liri, a 46-year-old veteran who competed through the World Taiwan Federation wild card, is generally optimistic that Ding Junhui can win, although the two have lost 2-4 to their opponents when they played in the Northern Ireland Open three years ago.
The process of the game proved that David Liri, a veteran, is indeed not simple, and he has created a lot of trouble for Ding Junhui. The final round of the qualifying round was a long-term matchup with a 10-win 19 innings, and when it was halftime after the ninth inning, the score was actually Ding Junhui who was 4-5 behind. After returning to the table, David Leary won two more sets to rewrite the big score to 7-4, and Ding Junhui seemed to be in trouble. However, after that, Ding Junhui woke up in time to start the Jedi counterattack, although he failed to score a high score, but sometimes he scored 50+, and sometimes accumulated points through piecemeal hits, and David Liri was completely panicked. Ding Junhui played a 6-0 offensive climax with a magical six-in-a-row whip, achieved a major reversal at 10-7, and finally passed the qualifiers smoothly, advancing to the round of 32, which is the main match of this World Championship, and his opponent in the first round of the main round will be determined by lottery.
This is also the 16th consecutive time since Ding Junhui entered the professional arena to qualify for the World Championship at the Crucible Theatre, and the record for the highest number of Chinese players to participate in the Snooker World Championship held by Fu Jiajun is only 2 times, and the latter's 18 times are cumulative, Ding Junhui is continuous and uninterrupted, which at least shows that Ding Junhui's career is generally stable, and there has not been a situation of big twists and turns, ups and downs and even long-term truces like Fu Jiajun. Due to the poor state of the past period, Ding Junhui has now fallen out of the top 16 of the world rankings. He has not reached the ranking final since winning the British Championship for the third time in 2019.
As Asia's finest player, the last time he had to qualify for the World Championships was in 2016. However, it was that time that he achieved his best record at the World Championships, he reached the final all the way in the main game, and finally lost to mark Selby who was in the middle of the day to get the runner-up, which was also his best record in the World Championship so far, I hope that this time he can also have good luck and play, go further.
Text/Beiqing Sports Liu Ailin