– It was inevitable that at some point someone would break through and shine in the brightest lights. However, this came out of the box.
An Englishman who recently played in the World Snooker Championship at the Crucible Theater Joe Perry answers a Saturday morning video call from his home in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire.
Urheilu has asked a long-time snooker professional for an interview regarding the sensation of the World Cup, the Chinese Si Jiahuita.
The 20-year-old Si reached the semifinals as the youngest player since 1996. At that time, the sport’s superstar Ronnie O’Sullivan made it to the top four just under five months younger than Si.
The Chinese stunner was close to a place in the World Cup final when he led the semi-final Luca Brecel against at best 14–5. The dramatic semi-final ended with a 17–15 victory for Brecel.
When Si was born on July 11, 2003, Mark Williams had just won the world championship, O’Sullivan had made his second maximum break at the World Championships and Perry had spent his first season in the top 16 of the world rankings.
What unites the aforementioned trio is that they all debuted as professionals in 1992. At that time, there were no snooker players from China. When it was born, there were two Chinese players on the professional tour, now there are 24 of them.
What makes Sin’s case special is that he is found in the 80th place in the world list of 128 players. Also in the mutual order of superiority of the Chinese, he is only 19th.
– He hadn’t shown anything amazing in a couple of professional years, and then this kind of performance came. That says something about his abilities and the level of snooker in China, says Perry.
From father’s yoke, far from home
Although snooker has spread its tentacles outside of Britain, the fact that the qualifiers for all tournaments are held in England shows the island kingdom’s still strong grip.
Consequently, practically every player who dreams of snooker stardom has to move to England as a teenager. Si Jiahui is no exception.
Si is from Zhuji, a town with a population of over one million, located in Zhejiang province, south of Shanghai. Si claimed his place on the professional tour in May 2019, when he moved to Sheffield at the age of 16. There, Si practices what is known as the mother figure of Chinese players Victoria Shin in the maintained snooker academy.
Perry gives the biggest credit in Si’s story, however, to the English coach To Roger Leighton, which Si ended up learning at the age of 12. Sin’s father set up a snooker hall in Zhuji when his son was very young, where the father made Sin practice huge amounts.
– He practiced from nine in the morning until ten in the evening under his father. His father created enormous pressure, Leighton told the British newspaper For Independent (you switch to another service).
Under Leighton, the amount of training became humane and the temperamental Si turned into a cool snooker player, whose pocketing skills have been admired by fans in the Crucible Theater in recent weeks.
According to Perry, Leighton’s protégés also include Wu Yizewho lost to the Australian in the 1st round of this year’s WC tournament To Neil Robertson.
– He doesn’t get enough credit for his work. He is one of the best coaches in the world, whose teachings are sought by young Chinese and who has the ability to refine them into potential stars, Perry praises Leighton.
As the video below about the 8-year-old gambler shows, a new generation is already coming off the assembly line.
A new face for the billion-dollar project
Nowadays, Leighton coaches the Chinese, for example, in Yushan, located in Jiangxi province. A Chinese host the size of Helsinki made headlines in 2018, when China’s snooker bosses announced that they would build a new capital for the sport from it.
The snooker mecca includes a snooker academy and museum, a 4,000-seat arena and an athlete’s village. 250 million euros were sunk into this project alone (you will switch to another service).
Already by 2018 (you switch to another service) Yushan found 200 practice places focusing on billiard games. In addition, the majority of the city’s schools had the prerequisites for playing snooker.
The snooker boom exploded in China at the beginning of the 2000s, thanks to the breakthrough in 2005 Ding Junhui. Largely inspired by his success, a framework has been created in China that is used by around 50 million Chinese snooker enthusiasts.
China has pumped money into snooker in an unprecedented way.
– Nowhere else is the focus on snooker the way it is in China. Going there is like in the movies, says Perry.
Despite the efforts, the brightest crown, the world championship, has so far eluded Ding and his partners.
It is quickly becoming the new face of China’s billion-dollar attempt to become snooker’s new superpower.
Sin’s success is also a welcome glimmer of light in the sense that nine Chinese snooker professionals are currently suspended due to suspicions of match-fixing.
– What he has already done is incredible in itself. Most of those who debut at the Crucible can’t handle the pressure at all, but he has played the best game of his life in recent weeks, says Perry.
The big win brought it to the surface
Before the World Cup, there were few articles about Si’s background, as the Chinese youngster only had individual victories. One such came second in snooker’s biggest ranking tournament, the UK Championship in 2021.
At that time, Si had lost his professional status, but entered the race as one of the best amateurs. He took down one of the most famous stars in the sport Shaun Murphy’swho in the post-match interview strongly criticized allowing amateurs into professional competitions.
Murphy experienced the Chinese’s skills for the second time just over a week ago, when Si beat him in the opening round of the World Championship tournament. After this, Si won en route to the semi-finals by Robert Milkins and by Anthony McGill.
Although Si performed in an exceptional way at the World Championships, he is not at all different from other young people today who have become professionals. As Urheilu opened in an article published before the World Cup, the vast majority of young people do not survive their trial by fire on the current professional tour, but fall from the tour on their first attempt.
Si met fate twice, but managed to keep his professional rights through the qualifiers at the end of last season.
Sin’s expectations for this year’s WC tournament were not very high, as he bought no less than three return plane tickets to China during the Games. They remained unused as the games continued.
– I hope that he will be successful next season as well. Otherwise, it is easy to talk about him as a one-tournament wonder, which he is not. He’s a great player, but he has a lot of work ahead of him to cement his place at the top of the game. And that often takes time, says Perry.