Wild card Ding to face Doherty

Ding Junhui won his all-Asian battle with Marco Fu in the Riley’s Club Masters at Wembley this afternoon.

The 17-year-old from Shanghai, tipped to become China’s first-ever world snooker champion, came from 4-2 down to defeat his Hong Kong rival 6-4.

Ding’s victory sets up a last-16 meeting with Ken Doherty tomorrow morning.

However, it took him almost three hours to complete his comeback win and delayed the start of Jimmy White’s eagerly-anticipated match with Welshman Matthew Stevens.

Fu looked in control after taking four of the first six frames, helped by breaks of 100 and 57.

But Ding showed why tournament organisers had offered him one of the two wild cards to complete the 18-man line-up.

He showed his class with a fourth-frame break of 111 and then restricted Fu to just one point in frames seven and eight as he added runs of 50 and 77.

The ninth frame was a scrappy affair before a break of 44 at the start of the 10th set him up for his win.

“In the early frames there were a lot of mistakes and I didn’t think I could win,” said Ding. “But I’m pleased to win the match because I haven’t really had a good season.”

Both practice partner Peter Ebdon and world number one Ronnie O’Sullivan believe Ding has the talent to become world champion.

But he has not quite made the impression on the rankings that he was expected to. He is currently 57th on the provisional rankings which means he would be ineligible for the main circuit next term.

However, he will be hoping next month’s appearance at the China Open in Beijing will boost his ratings, where he will be one of 16 local players given wild cards.