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Ding stumbles into second round at World Champs

23/04/2008

Ding Junhui booked his place in the second round of the World Snooker Championships with a nervy 10-9 victory over Marco Fu.

The young Chinese had to battle hard to overcome Hong Kong native Fu, in a match that had an estimated viewing audience of more than 100 million in the Far East.

An enthralling opening session had ended with Ding leading 5-4, despite holding a 5-1 advantage at one stage and looking poised to run away with the match.

But Fu - regarded as one of the circuit's best match players – fought back early in the second session to take a 6-5 lead.

The players exchanged frames and the pressure began to tell on both men as they started to miss routine pots and run out of position at vital times during possible frame-winning breaks.

With the match delicately poised at 9-9 inside an enraptured Crucible theatre, Ding had the first chance after Fu left an attempted red over the pocket but failed to post anything like a decent score.

After further cagey exchanges, it seemed the match was slipping away from the world number nine as Fu put him in trouble by rolling up behind the green in baulk.

Despite three initial misses as he lined up an ambitious three-cushion escape, Ding finally hit his target.

And after another error from Fu, Ding compiled a 76 break to win his first-ever match at the Crucible and set up a mouth-watering meeting with seven-time champion Stephen Hendry in the second round.