Statistically speaking it's surely only a matter of time before some real wonder kids start popping up? I know Wenbo is no kid but it must be inevitable that a young natural pops up soon. Ding never really kicked on. Perhaps it proves that it's the coaching that makes the difference between natural talent as a 10-14 year old to being able to hold your own in matches against pros at 18-20.
A friend of mine predicted about 10 years ago after he went to a billiard hall while in China that they would be dominating the sport by now. He said it was about 4 or 5 stories with about 50 tables on each floor and a queue of youngsters waiting for their turn on each table. He also said he was told that there are loads of these places all over the country.
If all that is true it just seems crazy that a few more haven't made it, assuming the interest is still the same.
Could perhaps be the case that due to the differences in language/culture etc, a lot of talented people don't pursue it professionally. The sport's obviously gotten massive in China, but it's still a very, very British dominated sport, with lots of British stars and events. The travel could potentially be a big barrier for some, and while the general contingent of snooker players seem like decent, friendly people, I imagine it could be kind of intimidating for an 18-year old Chinese kid to come over to a different culture, and spend most of his time around people he doesn't know speaking a language he might not even understand.
That's my guess anyway: plenty of talent, but the vast majority maybe keeping it to a hobby, and not pursuing it.
Not to mention that if the stories of people queuing to play on tables is true, maybe it's difficult to get properly into? I mean, if there's not much of a coaching network, it's probably a hassle to actually
get a regular game, and might even be tough to get into professionally unless you somehow know someone...which is again unlikely.
With the sheer numbers though, we'll surely see some more popping up as you say. Will be interesting to see how the sport adapts as times goes on, and whether it becomes more China-centric if it really does explode at the top level.
