Ding storms to Shanghai title

Ding won his first ranking event title since the 2005 China Open, beating his compatriot Xiao Guodong 10-6 in the first ever all-Chinese ranking event final. Both players played really well all week, but Ding was particularly outstanding and his experience on the big stage showed in this one today.

Ding Junhui 10-6 Xiao Guodong - The match got off to a fairly nervy start, but once Ding got that frame he got stronger and took the second as well with a nice break of 83 to lead 2-0. Xiao Guodong fought back with a break of 62  in the third and 67 in the fourth to square the score at 2-2 at the mid-session interval. A run of 66 helped Ding along to the next frame, before Xiao levelled once more at 3-3 with the help of 52 break. Soon, Ding took control of the contest with a magnificent 126 break to put him 4-3 in front, before a 58 in the eighth helped him along to a 5-3 advantage. The final frame of the session was very nervy as both players knew the importance and difference between 6-3 and 5-4. The frame was very close and the scores were even, before Ding cleared from the final red to the blue for a 6-3 end of session lead.

The final session started brightly for Xiao with a 78 break reducing the gap to 2 frames at 6-4. However, it only got worse from there as Ding continued to dominate the match, with breaks of 58, 78 and 81 dominating the next 3 frames, putting him 1 away from the title at 9-4. Surely there was no way back for Xiao Guodong?  Well he thought hard after the mid-session break taking the next 2 frames to start the comeback that was surely impossible, at 9-6. However, Xiao's time was up in the next as a break of 71 was the catalyst for him winning the match 10-6, a fantastic performance by Ding Junhui.


All things considered, both men played really well in the tournament and the tournament overall was a great one with a lot of good matches. It was nice to see an all Chinese ranking final in a Chinese ranking event, and that will surely help snooker in China progress at a time that it needed a bit of a boost, after a lot of let downs from the home favourites in the recent past.

The next tournament on the calendar is the Asian Tour event 2 and it should be a good event, despite the absence of many top players. The season starts here and the next few months are sure to provide some classic snooker.