DING WINS BATTLE OF THE SUPERSTARS

LOCAL hero Ding Junhui today defeated Stephen Hendry 13-6 to take the dingvhendry.com Challenge title in Beijing.

Ding, the reigning UK champion, returned to the Olympic Gymnastic Arena for the final session of this East v West Test encounter needing just one frame to clinch victory in the best-of-25 frame contest.

And a break of 65 completed a well-received victory for the four-time ranking title winner.

“For this match I only wanted to entertain the audience and play entertaining snooker,” said Ding.

“Stephen didn't play that well and there really wasn’t any pressure on me.”

And Hendry was in full agreement with his Chinese counterpart.

“Taking nothing away from him (Ding) played really well when he got in. But my frustration is at the number of opportunities I gave him,” Hendry told 110sport.tv.

“It wouldn’t matter where we played in the world, whether it was in the UK or in front of his home support. You just cannot give a top player that many chances – and he is certainly a top player right now.”

Hendry had found himself outplayed on the opening day, his errors enabling Ding to amass a 10-2 overnight lead thanks to breaks of 70, 62, 112, 87, 82, 60, 103 and 96.

That leaving the provisional world No.7 needing just three more frames on the second day to take victory.

The seven-times former world champion however staged a minor comeback, taking the third session by 4-2 with knocks of 86, 64, 69 and 37 to leave the match score at 12-6.

However, there was no miraculous comeback from the Scot, his chances ended when in Frame 19, behind 52-0, he got back to the table but only succeeded in going in-off when potting a red.