SNOOKERS from China

Top 3

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Chinese Snookers of all time. This list of famous Chinese Snookers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Ding Junhui (1987 - )

With an HPI of 37.97, Ding Junhui is the most famous Chinese Snooker.  His biography has been translated into 30 different languages on wikipedia.

Ding Junhui (Chinese: 丁俊晖; born 1 April 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He is the most successful Asian player in the history of the sport and widely regarded as the greatest Asian player of all time. Throughout his career, he has won 14 major ranking titles, including three UK Championships (2005, 2009, 2019). He has twice reached the final of the Masters, winning once in 2011. In 2016, he became the first Asian player to reach the final of the World Championship. Ding began playing snooker at age nine and rose to international prominence in 2002 after winning the Asian Under-21 Championship and the Asian Championship. At age 15, he became the youngest winner of the IBSF World Under-21 Championship. In 2003, Ding turned professional at the age of 16. His first major professional successes came in 2005 when he won the China Open and the UK Championship, becoming the first player from outside Great Britain and Ireland to win the title. During his career, he has compiled more than 600 century breaks, including seven maximum breaks, in professional play. He is the only Asian player to be ranked world number one, which he first achieved in 2014 to become the 11th player to reach the top spot. He is a long-time resident of Sheffield, England, and owns the Ding Junhui Snooker Academy in the same city.

2. Liang Wenbo (1987 - )

With an HPI of 29.26, Liang Wenbo is the 2nd most famous Chinese Snooker.  His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Liang Wenbo (Chinese: 梁文博; born 5 March 1987) is a Chinese former professional snooker player. During his playing career, he won one ranking title at the 2016 English Open, twice won the World Cup for China in 2011 and 2017 with teammate Ding Junhui, and was runner-up at the 2009 Shanghai Masters and the 2015 UK Championship. He made 292 century breaks in professional competition, including three maximum breaks, and reached a career high of 11th in the snooker world rankings. Liang was convicted on a domestic assault charge in April 2022, after which the sport's governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), suspended him for four months for engaging in behaviour unbecoming of a sportsperson and for bringing the sport into disrepute. The WPBSA suspended Liang again in October 2022 while it carried out a match-fixing investigation that implicated him and nine other Chinese players. An independent disciplinary tribunal found Liang guilty of multiple match-fixing offences, as well as destroying evidence and not cooperating with the investigation. The WPBSA announced in June 2023 that it had permanently banned Liang and compatriot Li Hang from the sport, the only two lifetime bans ever handed down in professional snooker. The Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association (CBSA) upheld the WPBSA's decision.

3. Yan Bingtao (2000 - )

With an HPI of 23.95, Yan Bingtao is the 3rd most famous Chinese Snooker.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Yan Bingtao (Chinese: 颜丙涛; born 16 February 2000) is a Chinese former professional snooker player who is currently serving a five-year ban from professional competition after committing a range of match-fixing offences. He rose to prominence by winning the ISBF World Snooker Championship, the sport's world amateur title, in 2014 at age 14, which made him the tournament's youngest ever winner. He turned professional in 2016. Aged 17 years and 284 days, Yan became the youngest player ever to contest a ranking final when he faced Mark Williams at the 2017 Northern Ireland Open, but lost in a deciding frame. Yan claimed his first ranking title at the 2019 Riga Masters, becoming the third Chinese player, after Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo, to win a ranking event. He made his Masters debut at the 2021 event, where he defeated John Higgins 10–8 in the final to win his first Triple Crown title. Aged 20, Yan became the youngest Masters winner since then-19-year-old Ronnie O'Sullivan won it in 1995. In December 2022, the WPBSA suspended Yan from the professional tour amid a match-fixing investigation. Following an independent disciplinary tribunal, he was banned from competing professionally until 11 December 2027.