Ding puts one foot in the second round

Ding Junhui moved to within touching distance of a place in the second round of the Betfred.com World Championship today.

The 23-year-old sprinted into an 8-1 lead over Stuart Pettman and will need just two more frames to seal his place in the last 16 when they play to a finish tomorrow.

Providing he does not capitulate in the concluding session, the strongly-fancied Ding will move forward to a probable meeting with 2005 world champion and last year’s runner-up Shaun Murphy, who must first get past Gerard Greene.

UK champion Ding has captured more ranking points than any other player on the tour this season to emerge as a genuine candidate for the Crucible title.

The 23-year-old Chinese cueman is bidding to become the first player from outside the British Isles since Canadian Cliff Thorburn in 1980 to land snooker’s top prize.

He made breaks of 53, 77, 88 and 120 during a four-frame purple patch, before adding a run of 95 in the ninth.

Ding has made a second home for himself in Sheffield, his base for the snooker season, and had strong support in the audience, with the front rows dominated by Chinese fans.

He had Pettman’s misses to thank for several of his openings, but once Ding got in he rarely looked like missing, especially after the mid-session interval.

At 6-0, a whitewash was looming, and it would have been the first at the World Championship since John Parrott beat Eddie Charlton 10-0 in 1992.

But 37-year-old Pettman edged a scrappy seventh frame as Ding faltered briefly, to ensure he would avoid that embarrassment at least.

It was only a temporary stemming of the flow of the match though, and Pettman’s missed green along the baulk cushion allowed Ding in to pinch the eighth frame, before he almost ended on a century.

On the other table, England’s Mark Davis secured himself an overnight lead against Welshman Ryan Day.

World number six Day has reached three quarter-finals this season but was knocked out in the first round of both the Grand Prix and UK Championship.

And at 5-3 down to the qualifier Mark Davis with one frame to play today he was in danger of making another despairingly early exit. He took the final frame of the session though to narrow the gap to 5-4, leaving the match in the balance.