Shooting stars — why GBA is China's snooker hub

Tough decisions

Wu remembers the fraught conversations at home when he chose to drop out of middle school to pursue a professional snooker career.

"My parents argued over it," he said, matter-of-factly.

"They wanted me to be certain. They didn't want to saddle me with a difficult life if it didn't work out."

Feng said in the end, very few young players break through to become champions. "Most of these kids will never win a title — so what happens to them?" she said.

She said both parents and the young players themselves need to understand the risks of going pro.

"Outside of the specialized snooker training, I believe there's a lot of room to build better academic support for these players," Feng said.

Huang said that Dongguan is now working to have billiards recognized under the local sports-education integration mechanism.

That designation, if granted, would allow young billiard players to stay enrolled in school while devoting themselves to intensive training — a safety net that most aspiring young professionals in China currently need.

Huang added that a professional snooker career in China today does not necessarily have to result in a world ranking. There are other ways to stay in the sport.

As snooker programs spread into schools, former trainees can study for a state-issued social sports instructor certificate and teach in classrooms. Or they can go through the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association's coaching tiers or the CBSA's certification process and run a local billiards club.

"There's a real shortage of grassroots coaches and referees in Chinese billiards," Huang said. In Dongguan, he noted, a coach at a typical billiard club can expect a monthly income of 15,000 ($2,220) to 20,000 yuan.

Huang's longer-term vision for Chinese snooker balances elite development with a broader push to draw more people to "just play it for fun", bring snooker into more schools as a regular activity, and establish a contest pyramid that gives both the hobbyists and professionals a rung to reach.

Southern strengths

Within China's multi-pronged approach to snooker development, Huang is confident that the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will remain at its core.

What sets the region apart, he said, is not only its head start in the sport but its concentration of training resources thanks to the ever-greater cross-border movement of people, investment, and expertise.

Vincent Law Wing-chung, who chairs the Billiard Sports Council of Hong Kong China, shares that perspective, and said GBA cities are complementary across player and coach exchanges, training, event hosting, equipment manufacturing, and commercial strategy.

Hong Kong is the region's essential link to the international snooker circuit, but the mainland's well-appointed youth training infrastructure has also increasingly rebounded to the city's benefit, he said.

In 2024, seven-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan and top English player Judd Trump both secured Hong Kong residency. By June 2025, former world champion Neil Robertson had also announced he had done the same.

Law disclosed that more top players are currently pursuing Hong Kong residency.

Huang said Dongguan's expertise in the sport and well-equipped venues have made it a premier destination for visiting snooker teams. Hong Kong players, he noted, have been joined in Dongguan by those from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Germany, Belgium, Thailand, and elsewhere.

Hong Kong is well-suited for high-end, smaller-scale international tournaments, Law said, whereas larger ones are already being hosted by mainland cities.

In May, the Dongguan Changping Snooker Center opened and hosted the World Women's Snooker Championship. In June, the Dongguan Humen Convention and Exhibition Center staged the World Team Snooker Championship, the sport's premier global amateur team event. A Chinese team made history by clinching the title for the first time.

Huang said the GBA also plays a key role in the global billiard equipment trade.

While equipment manufacturers are centered in Jiangxi province's Yushan and Hebei province's Bazhou — the commercial gateway to markets worldwide is in Guangdong and Hong Kong, funneling products to markets worldwide.

According to the China Customs, Dongguan exported 22.07 million yuan of billiards equipment in the first three months of 2026, up 29.7 percent from the same quarter the year before.

Recent data from the CBSA showed that there are 245 million people actively playing cue sports in China and over 200,000 venues, with 550,000 enterprises feeding into the ecosystem.

"Billiards is now the sport with the highest degree of marketization in China," said Feng.