In the 2021/22 season, after the end of the English Open and before the start of the British Championship, the provisional ranking of China's snooker icon Ding Junhui fell to 25th place after deducting the prize money of the 2019/20 British Championship.
The chinese player with the highest ranking in the provisional world is Yan Bingtao, who ranked 14th, Zhou Yuelong, who is ranked 16th, Zhou Yuelong, who is second in the second place, ding Junhui ranks third among all Chinese players, followed by Lu Ning who ranks 26th and Zhao Xintong at 27th, and the "Youth Army" headed by Yan Bingtao, Zhou Yuelong and Zhao Xintong replaces the new pattern of Chinese snooker with Ding Junhui and Fu Jiajun as super "snooker ip" has initially taken shape - "Yan Zhouzhao" has formed the first group, although this pattern is not stable at present. But this is the first new situation in the 25 years of Chinese professional snooker.
Everyone knew that this day would always come, but I didn't expect it to come a little early.
It is not that China's youth army Yan Bingtao, Zhou Yuelong and Zhao Xintong can already break into Longtan alone in the British Three Islands, even if Yan Bingtao, who has won the World Cup championship, the ranking champion and the Masters championship, including any of them, still has a big shortcoming, they can not threaten today's post-80s three giants like Ding Junhui in the same period of the year, to put it bluntly, the reason for the early formation of this pattern is not that our youth army is mature enough, but that Ding Junhui seems to fall a little fast.
This year is Ding Junhui's 19th season, from the last time to win the championship unconsciously is close to two years, in these more than 700 days Ding Junhui did not even reach the top 4, 2020/21 the entire season blasted 21 shots to break the hundred, this data is its lowest data except for the first season, the 2020/21 season in the Welsh Open and Gibraltar Open two ranking matches back-to-back loss derby, this is the first time in the past 10 years, or lost to Pang Junxu and Scarlett, two post-00s youngsters.
These may be signs of Ding Junhui's decline. For China's snooker, this is not necessarily a bad thing; but for Ding Junhui, is there still a possibility of returning to the top and the world's snooker first camp?