Ding one for the future

SNOOKER: Steve Davis believes snooker dominance will prove beyond Ding Junhui - but expects the Chinese teenager to challenge for the World Championship in the near future.

The 18-year-old announced his arrival as a major force with a 10-6 victory against Davis in the final of the Travis Perkins UK Championship in York and looks to have all the qualities needed to reach the pinnacle of the game.

Some experts have even predicted the unflappable Shanghai youngster could stamp his authority on an era in the way Davis did in the 1980s and Stephen Hendry in the 1990s such is the talent and temperament he possesses.

But with the strength in depth among the snooker ranks increasing all the time, Davis thinks it is more realistic to wonder whether Ding can upstage Hendry by winning the sport's top prize before his 21st birthday.

"It's so hard to dominate the game now, in fact nigh on impossible to do it because there are so many good players around," said Davis, winner of six world and six UK titles. "But what you can say is that Ding is on course to become the youngest player ever to win the World Championship.

"He has a great cue action, hits the ball beautifully and is a very attacking player without being reckless, and I don't think he's the type of person who gets too worried by anything. He seems very single-minded and won't get fazed too much on the big stage.

However, to ensure he plays at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre next April the world number 62 - set to leap at least 30 places in the rankings for next season following his York victory - will have to win three qualifying matches at the Pontins complex in Prestatyn, north Wales.

That will be no easy task for Ding openly admits he dislikes the venue for all snooker's qualifying events and last year, not long before he won the China Open as a wild-card entrant, he fell at the first hurdle with a 10-7 defeat against little-known Lee Spick.

"He is no certainty to get through the qualifiers," said Davis, whose own Crucible place is assured due to his ranking of number 15."

In the meantime, the sport's next major event will go ahead without its rising Far East star, which will be a source of some embarrassment to the promoters, World Snooker.

The Masters, which has been brought forward to January 15th-22nd to avoid a clash with the BBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics, is an invitational tournament restricted to the world's top 16 players plus one wild-card and one qualifier.

World number 16 Ian McCulloch was awarded the wild-card because of the decision to give world champion Shaun Murphy, ranked number 21, a seeding in every event this season, while Stuart Bingham won the qualifying competition - which means no place for Ding.