Pot the Reds: Cue Sports in China
Friday, 4th December 2009 ~ Sam ~ Link ~ Comments (0)
Ding Junhui
A number of factors add up to give cue sports an edge in China. The increasingly popular sports have a rare combination of Chinese world beaters, government support, affordability, a fashionable image and excellent domestic TV coverage.
The most recent example of Chinese success came just two weeks ago (November 22nd) at the Kappa Cup Women's World 9-ball Championship, held in Shenyang. The title was claimed by 16-year-old, Liu Shasha, who beat China's popular "Queen of 9-ball" Pan Xiaoting in an all-China final. Liu's rise in the sport has been meteoric, from the time she started playing 9-ball a mere two years ago.
Four years ago another stick prodigy, Ding Junhui (丁俊晖), exploded onto the world snooker scene at the 2005 China Open by defeating then top-ranked Stephen Hendry in front of a television audience of 110 million, according to a report from China Daily. Ding followed that up later that year by beating another snooker legend, Steve Davis, to win the UK championship. Currently, however, Ding is in a slump and has dropped to 13th in the world (having been ranked as high as ninth). Perhaps he needs to learn some more lessons from Xiao Hui (Little Hui), the world-beating star of cartoon series "Dragon Ball No. 1," inspired by Ding.
In the last two years, Ding has inspired a new generation of snooker stars including Liang Wenbo, who now challenges Ding for the position as China's number one. Other players to have followed in Ding's footsteps, literally, are Xiao Guodong, Tian Pengfei and Liu Song--who now all live and train with him in Sheffield, England.
As one of China's biggest sports stars, Ding Junhui is the inspiration for a new cartoon series, "Dragon Ball No. 1."
Zhang Xiaodong, snooker director of the Multi-ball Administrative Center, the sport's governing body in China, is full of encouragement for the latest stars, saying to China Daily: "They give us a lot more to talk about other than Ding. They are trailblazers. They show millions of Chinese families that professional dreams are accessible, and tell sponsors there is a huge market behind them."
The millions of Chinese families and sponsors Zhang mentions haven't gone unnoticed by World Snooker, the sport's global governing body, which just last week (November 26th) announced that it will partner with IMG to launch a World Tour to "capitalize on the burgeoning interest in professional snooker in many countries around the world, and develop snooker's professional circuit in a way similar to that of global sports such as tennis and golf." A few of those world tour stops will surely be in China since Beijing was the site of World Snooker's first office outside of the United Kingdom and, according to World Snooker, approximately 50 million Chinese now play snooker.
The affordability of cue sports and their easy-to-understand rules are both factors in the sport's popularity in China. It fits well into the government's approved category of a "can play" sport and in addition, the sport has benefited from a "beautiful hustler" image of the women's players mentioned above. Thanks to that image it is now considered a cool sport, particularly amongst the fashion-sensitive youth demographic.
For non-traditional sports in China, the importance of exposure on CCTV-5 (the national sports channel) cannot be emphasized enough. With Chinese stars performing well on the world stage, CCTV has been steadily increasing broadcasts of snooker and 9-ball, in turn leading to more young talent coming through the ranks in what has become an extremely virtuous cycle for the sport.
With seemingly every aspect of China's support behind it, cue sports are flourishing in China and great leaps forward are being achieved breathtakingly fast. For evidence of this you need look no further than 16-year-old 9-ball world champion Liu Shasha, or veteran Ding Junhui, by far the most experienced Chinese snooker player, who earlier this year celebrated his 22nd birthday.
Ding Junhui image: Baike.baidu.com
Ding Junhui cartoon image: Sports.sohu.com
Tags: 9-ball, CCTV5, cue sports, Ding Junhui, governing body, Liang Wenbo, Liu Shasha, pool, Snooker, women's sports, World Snooker