By Elliott West
“I first got into snooker as a child because my father took me to play Chinese Eight Ball pool every weekend. He would take me downstairs because it was just next to our flat. We started when I was eight years old, and after a couple of months of Eight Ball we moved on to snooker and I loved it”.
Ding Junhui
Introduction
Behind every sporting great is a person who helps the dream happen. In snooker, the Chinese player Ding Junhui has risen from obscurity to stardom in China and across the globe. His natural talent and brilliance have shone through on the snooker table, resulting in Ding becoming the holder of 14 ranking titles. Yet where did this wave of genius stem from and who put Ding on this glittering career path? It doesn’t take very long to find out the answers to these burning questions with some further research. The answers lie in his influential father Ding Wenjun.
Back to Basics
When Ding was potting his way to victory as an 18-year-old at the 2005 UK Championship, his parents were busy packing up the contents of their apartment in Dongguan, Guangdong. It would take four truckloads to move furniture, belongings and of course their son’s cues. The motorcade would set off the next morning to begin a new family chapter in Shanghai. Ding’s father was unaware of what was unfolding at the Barbican in York. Yet he knew his son had the potential after having already won the China Open earlier in the year after defeating Stephen Hendry 9-5 in the final at the Haidian Stadium in Beijing.
The final wasn’t broadcast on Chinese domestic networks so Ding Senior asked a friend to watch the match on the Internet and keep him updated via text messages. When he found out his son had won, beating Steve Davis 10-6 and winning £70,000, he was happy but his primary focus was on establishing his new family home. Their Shanghai plan he believed was more important to Ding and the family as well. It was a hard decision to leave Dongguan. Ding had been brought up in a strict Chinese household where the focus was spilling blood, sweat and tears to make this prodigal son a future snooker champion. His parents were willing to sacrifice everything to make this dream come true. A dream that led to his father applying for an undergraduate programme at Shanghai’s Fudan University and opening a snooker club in which his father had invested. Ding Senior believed that although his son wouldn’t be able to attend full-time education because of his snooker commitments, he could attend on a part-time basis because in his words “he’s way too shy”.
The Road to Victory
Ding first picked up a cue when he was eight years old and soon grabbed the attention of his local community in Yixing, a city in the eastern Jiangsu province renowned for its handmade pottery tea wear rather than snooker. Ding Senior was a former tobacco dealer and saw that his son had what it takes to become a snooker champion. He spoke to prominent Chinese players and coaches about his son and they all agreed he was born out of championship stock. However, Ding didn’t have a billiard culture and that’s why his father decided to up sticks and move to Dongguan, the epicentre of Chinese snooker. He sold his tobacco business and asked his son to leave school and by the end of 1998, they had sold their family home in Yixing.
The family travelled south and settled in Dongguan. His father found a job as a waiter in a billiard hall. The astute father made sure that his contract allowed his son to practice for free in the club. It was a plan that paid off quickly. Dongguan was a stronghold for the mainland billiard sport but had fallen out of favour with the sports authorities in Beijing due to its non-Olympic status. Yet with the help of an influx of cueists from Hong Kong and Macau and plenty of practice, Ding began to learn that killer instinct is required to become a great player.
Ding would explode onto the snooker scene in 2002. He took the national crown in the spring and dominated the Asian Championship halfway through the year. This was followed by a victorious World Youth Championship campaign and ending the season in glory by lifting the Asian Games trophy in Korea. So impressed were the WPBSA by his performances that they awarded him a tour card on the UK snooker circuit. Within six months, he was second to Ronnie O’Sullivan in the highest number of century breaks. He would go on to win the 2005 China Open and the UK Championship.
Afterthoughts
Ding’s father has been highly influential in his son’s career. He was prepared to sacrifice everything to make it work. However, he remains to this day humble and grounded. He doesn’t want any of the red-carpet treatment that his son has in China and across the globe and prefers to not travel to tournaments and remain in China. The reason he gives is that it is boring there and he misses his friends. Ding spends most of his time at his family home in Sheffield with his wife Apple but always makes time to visit his father in China. His mother Chen sadly died from cancer at the age of 55 in 2017 and her passing had a profound effect on her son, describing it as a painful experience. Yet he was determined to soldier on in her mum’s memory. His father proudly watches his son on the internet in China. The two were recently filmed sharing noodles.
