Ding Junhui fails to qualify for a home event, faces anxious wait over Crucible seeding

In a meeting of two of Asia’s greatest-ever players - and a rerun of the 2011 Masters final - Ding was defeated 5-2 by Hong Kong’s Marco Fu at the Barnsley Metrodome on Thursday.

Fu made breaks of 86 and 91 before wrapping up victory with a 116. It means that the 48-year-old progresses to the main venue, televised stages of the £825,000 world ranking event which will be held in China between March 16-22.

There, Fu will face Ukrainian youngster Iulian Boiko in the last 64. Boiko saw off Robert Milkins, 5-3, in the Barnsley preliminaries.

Defeat for Ding - his fourth consecutive one on the World Snooker Tour - and his absence from next month’s main draw highlights a recent power shift in the Chinese snooker hierarchy.

For years, three-time UK Champion Ding has received a free pass straight through to the venue stages of tournaments held in his homeland; he has not not needed to play ‘qualifying’ ties in the UK, with his opening assignment held over to the big stage in the Far East.

This practise is commonplace for Chinese-hosted competitions with promoters wanting to guarantee the appearance of the sport’s biggest stars. But when the draw for the 2026 World Open was released a few weeks ago, Ding wasn’t one of the players who had their first round match held over to Yushan.

As it stands, world number 13 Ding is China’s number four with world champion Zhao Xintong (7th), Xiao Guodong (10th) and Wu Yize (12th) all ahead of him in the global standings.

As the current Crucible king, Zhao received a pass for Yushan, so did second-in-command Xiao.

Ding has played a part in all editions of the World Open on Chinese soil, winning the crown in 2017 and being runner-up only two years ago.

His run to the final in 2024 earned him £73,000, but due to the rolling two-year world ranking system - and losing to Fu meaning he collects no prize money from this year’s event - all that amount will come off his ranking points tally in a few weeks time.

Ding may be forced to go to World Championship qualifying

Elimination from the World Open means that Ding will not play competitively again until the season-concluding World Championship, but at what stage he will begin his latest world title tilt is still to be decided.

Having not entered the Welsh Open, or qualified for next week’s Players Championship, defeat in Barnsley also means that Ding cannot reach the 12-player Tour Championship held in Manchester at the end of March/start of April - an event he made the semi-finals of last year.

The top 16 in the world rankings after the Tour Championship will all be seeds for the Crucible’s main 32-player draw, and therefore will not be required to attend the qualifying rounds held just before it.

On the projected ‘Race to the Crucible’ ranking list, Ding is positioned in 16th place, but with no more money to add to his tally until Sheffield, he could be overtaken by several players in the chasing pack who have qualified for upcoming events he isn’t in.

At the time of writing, Ding is around £24,000 ahead of 17th-placed Stuart Bingham, although Bingham is set to be playing at the Welsh Open, and has qualified for the World Open, too.

Jack Lisowski, Elliot Slessor and Zhang Anda are in 19th, 20th and 21st respectively, but have all qualified for the Players Championship which carries a £150,000 top prize.

Should Ding be nudged outside of the top 16 before Sheffield, he would be required to win two qualifying matches to reach the Crucible where he would be randomly drawn against any of the top 16 seeds.

However, should that scenario happen, former world number one Ding can take motivation from the fact that when he made the World Championship final in 2016, he did so as a qualifier after slipping outside of the sport’s elite bracket just before the tournament.