Ding or Not to Ding?

[Pollita]

Now I know the Chinese will be the biggest ecomony in the world in 10 years time, overtaking America. I know that Snooker is a very popular pastime in China. There are like 10 Billion people in China, I forsee that there will be many more like Ding within the next 5 years.

Do you think the Chinese will dominate this sport much like the other sports such as, Badminton, Table Tennis/ Gymnastics?

[Sonny]

There will always be players from the UK doing well because it's so popular over here. I don't forsee a top 16 consisting of 16 Chinese players in my lifetime. I think Ding will be the standout player from China until the next decade.

*edit - and I don't think there are 10 billion Chinese! Try 1 billion

[Pollita]

10 Billion/1 Billion its the same. Its a lot of people ^^

Will Ding be Embassay World Snooker Champion?

[Sonny]

there will never be another Embassy World Champion but he will almost definitely win at the Crucible I think

[chrisfinch]

someone put a lot of money on a chinese player to win the worlds before 2010. he stands to win a lot of money and i hope for the development of the sport worldwide an asian player wins, preferably ding

[Pollita]

I would say Ding has better chances than Fu in winning the world championships. Ding has youth on his side.

[Sonny]

I would say Fu has next to no chance of ever winning it

[Pollita]

Well I would agree but then It does take 5-6 year after turning pro before you see any results. never say Never I guess

[chrisfinch]

I would say Fu has next to no chance of ever winning it

highly unlikey, wattana had the best chance, but he missed the boat.

hopefully the same doesn't happen to ding

[Sonny]

I guess I see things differently having been following snooker for 25 years now and have seen patterns younger folk haven't.

Wattana had too much pressure on him from his native Thailand and he didn't like living in England - a timid character he was also in the era of Hendry domination and therefore stood little chance of winning at the Crucible because at his best he wasn't as good as Hendry, and he wasn't 100% settled in his surroundings.

Fu isn't good enough to win it in my opinion. You have to have something special to win at Sheffield and he hasn't got, nor did he ever have it. He is a very solid player, but not a 'great' player.

Ding is as good as Fu and Wattana put together. I will bet my life on him winning at the Crucible in the next 5 years, maybe even the next 2. Wattana and Fu were no where near the player Ding is when they were his age.

[chrisfinch]

2 years is unlikely, but there is a great chance in the next 5 years

[Sonny]

I think he's good enough to win it next year

[chrisfinch]

I think he's good enough to win it next year

that's confidence. i hope your right.

[Marge]

Considering how young Ding is and how he beat Stephen Hendry, I think he stands a good chance!

[ChelseaFC]

The Chinese could dominate anything they wanted to if they had the inclination, just see the results at the Beijing olympics in 2008 i have a feeling they're going to send quite a message to the rest of the world.

Ding has the ability to be world champion, and you can be sure he's going to get a lot of support from the Chinese government to develop, so ability, support, temperment, as long as he maintains his drive i can see it happening within 5-7 years.

I can't see a domination of snooker by Chinese players at any time, but you can be sure we'll see a few more Ding's coming through.