It's day 2 of my feature looking back at the best players of the year, and today we have February's Player of the month who is Ding Junhui. Here are my thoughts on how Ding went all the months ago and throughout the last season or so:
Ding's February looked pretty formidable starting on the 1st of the month with a good win in a classic semi-final of the German Masters against Ryan Day, before winning the event and securing his 4th ranking title of the year with a truly superb performance to beat Judd Trump in the final. He then came back at the back end of February for the Welsh Open in Newport and by the time February was out Ding had reached the semi-finals, and he ended up losing in the final on March 2nd. One of the performances that showed how far Ding has come this year, was actually his quarter-final win on the last day of February 5-4 against young Joel Walker having been 4-2 down.
Ding had gotten to the Welsh Open quarter-finals with wins against Gary Wilson, Jamie Cope, Ben Woollaston and Scott Donaldson and he'd played pretty well, but had only really been put under any kind of pressure by Woollaston, so he knew this would be a new test. Ding got out of the blocks well with a 74 in the opener, but Walker showed some of what he was made of in the next with a 78 to level the game up. A 64 in the third gave Ding the advantage again, before Walker squared the contest at the mid-session break taking a scrappy frame. Joel looked really good after the interval with breaks of 74 and 101 to put himself 4-2 up and 1 frame from victory. The 19 year-old had chances in the 7th frame to win the match, but a break of 52 helped keep the Chinaman in the match, and a missed long red from Walker in the 8th led to Ding forcing a decider with a 139 total clearance. The former Welsh Open champion, showed what he's made of in the decider, as he has done many times already this season, with a run of 104 making consecutive centuries for Ding Junhui to win the match.
I think that has been the difference with Ding Junhui in the last season or 2 and that has been his ability to dig in in difficult situations, and play some of his better snooker under pressure. In times gone by his head might have dropped when he was behind and things weren't going his way, and on occasions that still happens but nowhere near as often as it used to. At the end of the day, this is the difference between him winning the Shanghai Masters, Indian Open, International Championship and the German Masters and ending up with lots of Last 16, quarter-final and semi-final appearances like some other players I could think of. At the end of the day, as a lot of wise players say, snooker (and a lot of sports) are all about the six inches between the ears.
We can also see though, how much work Ding Junhui has put into his game to start performing so consistently, and reel of a number of frames against any player at any time with some sublime snooker. If any proof was needed of this it is when Ding beat Judd Trump 9-5 on February 2nd in the German Masters final. Ding Junhui found himself 4-2 down with 2 frames left of the afternoon session, before making breaks of 51 and 81 to make it 4-4 going into the evening session, leaving Trump probably a touch disappointed. From this point, Ding Junhui played some absolutely stunning snooker barely giving Trump a chance, and turning an even game of snooker, into a massively 1 sided affair within about 1 hour or so. Runs of 125, 101 and 72 left Judd Trump 7-4 down and 2 frames from defeat having not even potted a ball in the evening session. Trump was soon feeling the pressure and then at 8-4 down and only a frame from defeat the game was up and Ding Junhui had broken the back of yet another match in his amazing season.
Not only is Ding Junhui my player of the month for February, but he is already a strong candidate for my player of 2014. But who will the other candidates be? Don't forget to come back tomorrow to find out March's Player of the Month.
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