I love writing sports news, so here we go:

Ding Junhui Won His First Ranking Title in Five Years

Oct 10th 2024, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China. Chinese legend Ding Junhui beat English player Chris Wakelin by 10-7 to win the 2024 World Snooker Tour International Championship.

Wakelin had a good start, leading Ding by 4-1, but the “Dragon“ recovered swiftly, established a lead of 5-4 when the first session ended. He later extended his lead by 7-4, while Wakelin chased back to 7-6. Ding then claimed 3 of last 4 frames to win 10-7 comfortably.

Both players showed great form in the final. Wakelin compiled 6 half-centuries while Ding knocked 8 half-centuries.

It is the “Dragon”‘s 15th ranking event title of his career and the first one in nearly 5 years. His last one was the UK Championship in Dec 2019. With three lost finals in past two year, it’s one of the longest ranking title draught periods for Ding’s career, he celebrated with a fist pump when potting the winning black, and the Chinese crowd roared with great excitement to congratulate his victory. In the post-match interview, he specially thanked the fans who kept supporting him in those tough year, “It was a tough time not just for me but for my fans, we had to suffer a lot these years, and I’m glad we all made it through.”

With this victory, Ding claimed 175000 pounds for prize money and ranking points, making him back to the top-8 of the ranking list, and a last-minute spot for the Champion of Champions next week held in Bolton. Wakelin, with 75000 pounds gained, raised his ranking to top-16 for the first time in his career.

Now, personal:

Ding is always a childhood hero for me. Thanks to my father, I grew my interests in all kinds of sports at a quite young age. Fortunately, during my elementary and middle school years, China had witnessed a huge spurt of world-class athletes in many sports. I could never forget cheering in front of the television for the victory moments of Ding Junhui, Li Na, Yao Ming, Liu Xiang, etc… and feeling extremely sad during those lost matches. Even though I did not fully understand the rules of some of the games, those athletes and sport teams served as an early patriotic lessons, and their stories were so inspiring and motivational that they helped me a lot for my life and especially bridge competitions.

Growing up a little bit, when I reached 14 or 15, my focus kind of switched to football completely, rooting for Milan every weekend (stress on the WEEKEND, as we had no UCL games during that time), which was a little bit self torturing and depressing.

I vaguely remember the 2016 WC final, when Ding lost 14-18 to Selby. Me and my father did not follow it closely as the game was mostly in midnight, but the memory of the joy hearing that Ding reached final and the sadness of both Ding and Marco Fu losing to Selby are still vivid.

Ding’s last victory in UK 2019 is also an exciting moment, but I only returned to closely following snooker later in 2022 after Zhao Xintong‘s UK victory. In short, lots of things changed because of Covid. When having to spend most of your time alone in bedroom. snooker seemed to be a great entertainment to watch peacefully.

Just like Ding’s winning momentum was halted by covid immediately after his Dec 2019 win, we all suffered in some levels when the pandemic stroke. Some impact was brief and recovered sooner, some impact was profound and it took a long patient period of waiting, self-searching, and re-grouping.

Personally, I take this five-year-waited victory of Ding as a symbol of those kinds of “long, patient, and somehow tormenting” resurrection period of post-covid life. I am grateful to have witnessed it today, and I keep telling myself not let those symbols dictate my feelings, just like how devastating I felt watching Ding’s lost to Allen in 2022 UK, lonely in a room crowded with happy faces watching Qatar World Cup opening game.

Best wishes to all.