The Hindu : Ding wins in style

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 13, 2002

Sport

Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Ding wins in style

By Our Sports Reporter

China's Jun Hui Ding poses with the trophy after claiming the Asian under-21 snooker title in Kolkata on Friday.

KOLKATA, APRIL 12. The Chinese whirlwind Junhui Ding put the final signature of his authority lifting the title in the fourth Asian under-21 snooker championship here at the Calcutta Swimming Club on Friday. As Ding outclassed Thailand's Pramual Janthat 6-2 in the best-of-11 frames final, it signified a symbolic transfer of power. With Thailand winning the last three titles in the continental contest, China emerged as the new leader ending the former's reign.

The 15-year-old Chinese, coming here after winning his country's senior National amateur title, gave the first impression of his precocious abilities right from the preliminary league stage. He made power and precision his hallmark and bore it all through with an uninterrupted consistency to establish him as the champion long before he formalised the title on Friday. Ding's biggest victim remained the top seeded Indian Manan Chandra — a pre-tournament favourite — who sat through most of the best-of-nine frames semi-final (played on Thursday) witnessing the latter work out a series of sizeable breaks for a humiliating 5-0 loss.

Meeting the third seeded Janthat in the final, Ding — seeded fourth — was expected to repeat the drubbing he dished out to Chandra. But the Thai put up a dogged fight and wrested two frames to delay Ding's triumph. Janthat, who outlasted Keem Ho Moh of Malaysia in the ninth frame following a four-and-a-half hour-long battle in the semifinals, put up a slow and guarded approach against Ding's aggression.

The first four frames went Ding's way rather easily as the Chinese player worked out decent breaks and never allowed the Thai to succeed with his defensive ploys. The scores of 70-33, 71-10, 78-28 and 89-12 in the first four frames clearly suggest the command Ding enjoyed in attaining the 4-0 lead before the interval.

Following the break Janthat dug himself deep with a sound defence and snared the Chinese in a mesh of `safety-play'. Ding lapsed into errors trying to force his win and missed a crucial pot on an open position in the fifth frame. Janthat availed the opportunity and, despite being down 16-37, worked out a clearance break of 58 to halt Ding in his rails.

In the next frame Janthat again succeeded in frustrating Ding with repeated snookers and worked out the position in his favour as the Chinese, leading 55-39 at one stage, failed to pot a crucial brown to allow his opponent walk away with another clearance break.

Despite having made a splendid comeback narrowing Ding's lead to 4-2, Janthat appeared to falter again in the seventh frame. Janthat led the frame 40-16 earning a break of 31 in his fourth visit but an effective snooker by Ding in his seventh visit had Janthat making two successive foul-and-a-miss, giving the Chinese eight bonus points and a free-ball to wriggle himself out of the crisis and win it 75-46.

Winning the seventh frame, Ding appeared to regain his confidence while the Thai made two costly fouls to aid the Chinese who did not make any more mistakes to win the frame and the title.

Manan Chandra beat Keem Ho Moh in the third place play-off 3-0 (in a best-of-five frames contest) to reclaim some of the honour and ensure the bronze. Ding received a crystal trophy and the winner's purse of $1,000 while Janthat got $600 as the runner-up. India's Pankaj Advani, who lost in the quarterfinals, received a special award for making the highest break — of 120 — in the tournament.

The results (seedings prefixed): Final: 3-Pramual Janthat (Thai) lost to 4-Jinhui Ding (Chn) 2-6 (33-70, 10-71, 28-78, 12-89, 74-37, 66-55, 46-75, 20-61).

Third place play-off: 1-Manan Chandra (Ind) bt Keem Ho Moh (Mal) 3-0 (81-0, 60-26, 66-43).

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