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Being Ding Junhui - 110 million plus viewers back home expect...

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The BBC's David Croft wonders whether the pressure of being China's great snooker hope is too much for Ding or whether this time round he'll show his true potential

He holds the record for the most unanswered points in any snooker tournament. At the age of 18 he became the first player from outside Britain and Ireland to win the UK Championship. Commentators and former players have all stated their belief that one day he will be a world champion. But it's nearly two years now since his last ranking tournament win and he remains as inconsistent as he is inspired. Over the course of this year's World Championship would the real Ding Junhui please stand up?

If not for the sake of my pocket but for his many fans both here and in China where any lengthy participation at The Crucible could result in hundreds of millions of loyal subjects waving goodbye to a decent night's sleep. This is the man who when beating Stephen Hendry to win his first ranking tournament attracted a TV audience of 110 million.

What the pressure of playing to such a large following does to a player like Ding I can't imagine but it's not like he hasn't had to play under pressure for most of his life.

After all his Dad, after taking the 9 year old Ding to the Chinese national Training Centre persuaded his mother to sell the house so the young prodigy could carry on playing the game he loved. Playing to pay the rent does tend to focus the mind, even at such a young age. His room at the training base by the way measured just 5 square metres and it was here that he and his father lived until Ding came over to Britain at the age of 16. A year later after winning the World Under 21 Championship and a Gold Medal at the Asian Games Ding, he was the Chinese No.1 and a stellar career was being mapped out for him.

That China Open victory, beating Stephen Hendry in the final, came less than 2 years after Ding turned professional. Fittingly during the season he was now living in Sheffield, home of world snooker and the perfect place for a young man with world beating aspirations to spend his days. His days by the way were by now filled with practice. Up to 8 hours a day, hard but necessary graft if you want to make it to the top.

Fast-forward to 2008 and we know that Ding is very capable and his position in the world's top 10 is by no means a false one. But here's the big question and it's one on the eve of the world championships that is worth posing. Has Ding lived up to the expectations placed on him, and were those expectations realistic in the first place?

To have three ranking tournament wins under your belt by the time you turn 20 is unprecedented in world snooker. This boy really is a stellar talent, but if he could in someway couple his temperament to his technique this boy could achieve far more. I didn't like the way he tried to throw in the towel and give up, just because he was on the receiving end of a mauling from O Sullivan at the Masters. Ding was quoted as saying he grew up after that and that it wouldn't happen again, but there he was trying to throw the towel and his toys out of the pram a few months later when Ronnie beat him 10 frames to 2 at the world championships. Maybe now he has grown up, the fact that he's learnt a little more English will have helped as well, the move from China to Sheffield at such a young age can't have been easy.

You see the trouble with Ding is that the pressures on him from such a young age and the subsequent expectations placed upon him but a country desperate for him to succeed and from those in the sport that know they've spotted a potential superstar, have been too much too soon. Steven Hendry believes that eventually Ding could break his run of world titles; he could but give him some time. With Ding there's been no middle ground and I don't think that's helped.

Still, I'm hoping he'll justify my faith and give me a good run at the Crucible where the Betfair winners market has him at [13.5]. Initially I'm taking it one game at a time so I'll have some of the [1.62] to give Marco some 'FU' for thought in the first round.