Ding Junhui suffered Waterloo again, can he regain his strength after a round of the World Championships?
Ding Junhui was once again knocked out in advance in the first round of the 2024 World Snooker Championship. As the world No. 7 seed, he had a big lead in the tournament but was unable to hold on to his advantage, losing 9-10 to qualifying top seed Jake Lisowski. This is already the embarrassing situation of Ding Junhui in the main event of the World Championships for 4 consecutive years, when will he be able to regain his fighting spirit and regain his strength in this event?
Ding Junhui once had an absolute advantage in the first round of this World Championships. In the first seven games of the stage, he led his opponent Lisowski 4-3. In the 8th game of the following, Ding Junhui made another game and expanded the score to 5-3. In the 9th game, Ding Junhui broke 100 with a single stroke, expanding the lead to 8-3, and only 1 game away from winning and advancing.
At this juncture, Ding Junhui's state suddenly slipped. Lisowski won three games in a row to quickly level the score to 6-6. In the 13th game, Ding Junhui went to the next game, but in the next 4 games, he failed to seize the opportunity, but Lisowski had the upper hand and overtook the score to 9-8.
In the deciding game, Ding Junhui fought tenaciously and equalized the score to 9-9. In the final game, he failed to bite the score again, and finally lost to Lisowski 9-10 and missed the promotion. This is the fourth consecutive year that Ding Junhui has encountered an embarrassing situation in the main round of the World Championships.
For Ding Junhui, this is undoubtedly a heavy blow. As the top player of Chinese billiards, he has achieved good results in important tournaments many times in his past career, but the World Championships have always been his nightmare. Since the start of his career in 2005, Ding Junhui has only reached the final of the World Championships once in 2016, but that time he also unfortunately lost to Mark Selby and missed out on the title.
Ding Junhui's poor performance at the World Championships is also inseparable from his sluggish overall form in recent years. Once upon a time, the Chinese player was in the limelight, having won the world rankings twice in 2011 and 2013 and was regarded as the most promising new king of green felt after O'Sullivan. However, in recent years, Ding Junhui's form has declined significantly, and his performance in important events has become worse and worse.
In addition to Ding Junhui, the performance of the Chinese army in this World Championships was also disappointing. Zhang Anda, Lu Haotian and Pang Junxu also stopped in the first round of the main event, and the only one to advance to the round of 16 was only 21-year-old Si Jiahui.
For Chinese snooker, such results are too thin. As a big country in the world of snooker, China's pool of billiards talents has always been very sufficient, but in the top professional arena, the performance of Chinese players often cannot match the strength.
Looking back on the development of Chinese snooker, it is not difficult to find that Chinese players are often able to display a very high level in their hometowns, but once they set foot on the international stage, their performance will be greatly reduced. The main reason for this is that there is an obvious gap between Chinese players and traditional strong teams such as Europe in terms of growth environment and competition system.
In China, although snooker is also a fairly popular sport, its influence and attention are still limited compared to football, basketball and other sports. Due to the lack of sufficient professional events and training resources, it is difficult for Chinese players to obtain systematic and scientific training in the process of growth, and they rely more on their own talent and hard work to explore and move forward.
In traditional snooker powerhouses such as the United Kingdom, players can receive standardized and scientific training from an early age, and there are a large number of professional events to train themselves. The players who have grown up in this environment are more skilled and experienced than Chinese players in terms of technical skills and psychological quality.
Jack Lisowski, the dark horse of this World Championships, grew up under this complete competition system. The 23-year-old England youngster has been playing under the influence of British snooker since he was a child, and his growth path has been step by step, step by step.
Lisowski performed well in the World Championship qualifiers this year and eventually reached the main draw as the top seed. In the first round of the main competition, he showed outstanding on-the-spot performance ability and tenacious fighting spirit.
Facing the strong Ding Junhui, Lisowski once fell into a huge 8-3 deficit. But he was not discouraged, but gritted his teeth and won five games in a row to equalize the score to 8-8. In the subsequent game, the two sides went back and forth, and the battle situation was tense. Lisowski relied on his control of the tiebreaker and defeated Ding Junhui by a narrow margin of 10-9.
This kind of performance not only shows Lisowski's excellent basic skills, but also shows his excellent psychological quality. As a young player, being able to stay calm, grit his teeth and fight back until he finally came back to win, when he was so far behind, is a rare and commendable spirit of tenacious fighting.
For Lisowski, this victory over Ding Junhui is of great significance. Not only did it make him a tough win at the World Championships, but it also proved that he has what it takes to compete at the top level. If Lisowski can maintain his current form, I believe he will be a dark horse in the next races, which is worth looking forward to.