Ding Junhui: 'This year, I'm doing good'

Ding Junhui considers his next move during his match against Ireland at the 2017 Little Swan Snooker World Cup in Wuxi on July 3. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

But even as he struggled to adapt to life in England, he had been catapulted to stratospheric levels of fame back in China.

When he beat seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry to win the China Open in April 2005, days after his 18th birthday, 110 million people were watching on CCTV-5, the largest recorded audience for a snooker match in history.

If it took Ding a while to adjust to his rapid elevation to household name status, now he laughs it off. When asked how far he could walk out of the stadium before someone recognized him, he jokes: "Just out the door, that’s it!"

Thanks to the trail he blazed from China to Sheffield, many other young Chinese players are now following in his footsteps, and Ding can't help sound a little envious of the relatively stress-free transition many of them now enjoy to life in the UK.

"They are lucky. We know everything there. They're learning quick," he says. "It's a bit different to 10 years ago in the UK. There are more Chinese students, more Chinese people, you can live much easier than before. Sometimes you find living in the UK or China is not much different.”

Yet he is delighted by the rapid progress snooker has made in China since he turned pro.

"It's still growing up. Many, many young players. They are becoming stronger and they're playing well," he says. "I believe that the top 32, half will become Chinese players."

Two of those rising stars, Zhou Yuelong and Yan Bingtao, are also competing at the World Cup, and Ding singles them out as the most likely future champions from the pack of young Chinese hotshots.

But if his team faces Zhou and Yan in the latter stages of the tournament, Ding playfully predicts that there is only one likely winner: "Ours!" he laughs.