Ding brings down curtain on Hendry
Ding Junhui raised the roof at Beijing’s Haidian Stadium and delighted an estimated television audience of 100 million by beating Stephen Hendry to win the China Open.
Only two days after celebrating his 18th birthday, Ding became the second youngest player to capture a world-ranking title – after Ronnie O’Sullivan - and the first wild-card entry ever to lift one of snooker’s major trophies with a stunning 9-5 victory over Hendry.
But Ding will not receive a penny for his triumph even though the event carried £30,000 (€43,800) for the champion.
As a wild card he is entitled to nothing and having withdrawn from the qualifying competition in January to accept wild-card status. Even so Ding was overjoyed to record the most significant result for global development in the sport’s history.
“I didn’t feel under any pressure because I looked at it as a practice match to learn from Stephen,” said Ding.
“Winning this will give me a lot of confidence for next season and that’s just what I needed because I’ve lost so many matches lately I should have won.
“I had a bit of luck in the afternoon session and tonight everything I did seemed to go right.”
Ding rallied from a worrying start to claim eight of the closing nine frames.
“Ding’s a great talent. There’s no doubt about that and what he’s done in front of his home crowd is a real achievement,” said Hendry.
“We’ll wait to see what happens next season but if he can eventually break into the top 16 I’m sure he’ll be there or thereabouts winning more tournaments in the future.”
Ding, who hails from the Jiangsu province near Shanghai, whitewashed former world champion Peter Ebdon 5-0 in the last 32 and Ken Doherty 6-0 in the semi-finals but the 80-1 pre-tournament outsider appeared to have met his match in Hendry.
The event looked set to end in anti-climax, and a heavy defeat for Ding, when Hendry smoothly established a commanding 4-1 lead with breaks of 92, 108, 46 and 57.
However, Ding began to find his range, Hendry’s safety developed holes and the complexion of the match changed when his fearless teenage rival clawed back to 4-3.
Ding, who had never previously been further than the last 16 of a world -ranking event, also stole the eighth frame on the pink after Hendry had jawed a vital green and the opening session ended 4-4.
The momentum remained with the younger man on the re-start as Ding moved 5-4 ahead with a run of 107.
Ding remained in front at 6-5 after splitting a pair of scrappy frames and took a 7-5 advantage with a cool 53 clearance to pink after another tactical blunder by Hendry.
By now, Hendry was ragged. Leading by 19 in frame 13 and in the kind of scoring territory he usually relishes the normally dependable Scot missed a straightforward pink to a middle pocket.
Ding pounced with an 87 clearance and shortly afterwards inspired a thunderous ovation by wrapping up a remarkable success with a run of 103.
That was Ding’s sixth century break of a week that has seen him emerge as a national hero.
“I had a terrible run of the balls from 4-2 to 4-4 and tonight I didn’t perform,” said a disgruntled Hendry. “I don’t think I’ve ever found it more difficult to get position from one ball to the next. That was frustrating.”
