The Paper's reporter Chen Jun
Ding Junhui's trip to the World Championships is destined to attract the attention of a large number of Chinese fans, but in the first round of the game in the early morning of April 21, Ding Junhui lost 8-10 to England star Karen Wilson, and traveled in a round of the World Championships for two consecutive years.
Although Ding Junhui had no choice but to go out, the young people represented by Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao in the past two years have caught up, and they have shown competitiveness and even stronger than Ding Junhui in large-scale events.
Ding Junhui once single-handedly provoked the beams of Chinese snooker, and now it seems that the time has come to hand over the baton.
Ding Junhui still made a mistake at a critical moment.
They all wanted to defeat Ding Junhui
As a "brother" of China's snooker with 14 ranking champions, Ding Junhui has been in poor form in recent years, and this season's world ranking has slipped out of the top 16, which means he has to start from the qualifiers again after 2016.
Some fans also doubted whether Ding Junhui could successfully enter the main game, after all, his state of the past two years was too confused, but fortunately, after eliminating the 46-year-old amateur David Liri 10-7, Ding Junhui continued the record of appearing in Crucible for 16 consecutive years.
But his opponent in the first round of the regular match is Wilson, the No. 5 seed of the tournament - the two sides have met 14 times, ding junhui is in the inferior position with 6 wins and 8 losses; this season, the two have also met 4 times, and Ding Junhui is at a disadvantage of 1 win and 3 losses.
There are many indications that this will be a vicious battle. In the first stage of the game, Ding Junhui played a 1-shot breaker and a 5-50+, once leading 3-0 with a large score, although Wilson fought to catch up, Ding Junhui still ended the first stage with a 5-4 lead.
Ding Junhui was a little helpless.
In the second stage, the game became more intense, and the score of the two alternately rose - in the 13th set, Ding Junhui played his second shot of the game to break the hundred, leading 7-6 to enter the intermission, but this was Ding Junhui's last lead in this game.
Back from the break, Wilson suddenly threatened, winning two consecutive innings of the 14th and 15th innings with a clean sheet to take the lead for the first time in the game at 8-7.
At the critical moment, Ding Junhui played his third single shot of the game to break the hundred, and chased the big score to 8-8 at 117-22. Unfortunately, Ding Junhui made a series of mistakes in the next step, and was eliminated by Wilson in two straight sets.
"It's amazing, I love every minute of the game. When two people score well and stimulate each other, a good snooker is born. I felt it was a quick, aggressive, fluid game, a great game. ”
Wilson (left).
Wilson's post-match reaction shows how excited he is, although Ding Junhui has performed mediocrely in recent years, but no one will think that he is an easy player to deal with, in the eyes of most snooker players, Ding Junhui still has a high ceiling.
"Some of the players don't want to meet Ding (Ding Junhui) in the first round, it's true that you have to play well in this situation, but if you win, it will prepare me for the rest of the tournament, and I did (beat Ding Junhui)."
Playing with Ding Junhui so fiercely, Wilson himself considered it his most memorable guide to the game, "Last year, against G. Wilson, I played a similar match, in the first stage of that game, I found myself behind, but I managed to win the final victory 10-8. Sometimes, those races are a good stepping stone for you in a long race. ”
Young general Yan Bingtao broke into the round of 16.
Ding Junhui's era is over?
Although Wilson did not have any disrespect, but became a stepping stone for a strong opponent in the World Championships, Ding Junhui's current inner feelings are obviously not pleasant, and his post-match conversation is very simple:
"Now I can spend time with my family and have more time for myself."
Ding Junhui tried to use such monologues to forget the scars left by the defeat as much as possible, but he regretted that he had lost the last moment of the game, "I did miss a lot of opportunities to win. ”
The data shows that whether it is in the total score, offensive ball, batting success rate, far platform success rate and other important data, Ding Junhui is ahead of Wilson, but unfortunately, the last two sets of key balls, he failed to withstand the pressure, successive mistakes to send opportunities, was terminated by Wilson.
It seems that Ding Junhui still has not changed the chronic disease of dropping the chain at key moments, and this is the second consecutive year that he has been eliminated in the first round of the World Championships - in this snooker world's most important competition, Ding Junhui has shown a worse and worse trend.
Young Zhao Xintong constantly showed his self-confidence.
In 2016, Ding Junhui reached the final, but lost 14-18 to Selby and finished second, which was his best record at the World Championships;
In the 2017 2017 Ding Junhui 1/4 final 13-11 O'Sullivan advanced to the semi-finals, but met Selby again in the semi-finals, losing 15-17;
Ding Junhui in the 2018 World Championships 1/4 final against Hawkins, 5-13 fiasco, stopped in the quarterfinals;
In 2019, Ding Junhui lost to Trump 9-13 in the second round, retreating from the last quarterfinals to the round of 16;
Ding Junhui continued to decline at last year's World Championships, losing 9-10 to Bingham in the first round of 16; this year he once again waded into the same river - out of the first round.
In the past, Ding Junhui was at least a popular candidate to advance to the final four, but now he can only simply shine a picture in the main game of the World Championships...
Ding Junhui can not be said to be hard, two first rounds of the trip he insisted until the last moment, but in the end the previous achievements were abandoned to make people strangle - the 34-year-old Ding Junhui has some meaning of not being brave enough to return to the past, while most people torture Ding Junhui's poor psychological quality, there are also people wondering whether Ding Junhui's hard power is also declining.
In addition to Ding Junhui, among the 3 Chinese players who played in the main competition before, Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao successfully advanced to the round of 16, and although Lu Haotian, who was eliminated in the qualifiers, he was only 23 years old and still played the standard.
It seems that behind the decline in Ding Junhui's competitiveness, China's snooker is quietly changing dynasties.
Editor-in-Charge: Ascendas