Zhang Anda

Zhang Anda
Born December 25, 1991 (1991-12-25) (age 20)
Sport country  China
Nickname Mighty Mouse[1]
Professional 2009–
Highest ranking 69 (5 months)
Current ranking 69
Highest <dfn style="border-bottom:1px dotted #0645AD; font-style:inherit;">break</dfn> 134 2010 World Championship Qualifying
Best ranking finish Last 32 2010 World Championship

Zhang Anda (born December 25, 1991) is a Chinese professional snooker player, who made his debut on the Main Tour for the 2009/2010 season. He qualified by winning the ACBS Asian Under-21 Championship.

Standing at 5 ft 3ins tall, he is nicknamed "Mighty Mouse". Zhang lives in Romford, England during the snooker season and is managed by Grove Leisure, practising at their Academy facility which is also based in Romford.

Contents

Career

2009/10 season

The 2009/2010 season was Zhang's first professional season on the tour.

It started uneventfully with a defeat in his first match in the first qualifying round of the Shanghai Masters to Craig Steadman 2–5.

His second ranking tournament, the Grand Prix, proved to be slightly more successful with wins against Ben Woollaston 5–3 and Jin Long 5–2. He was then eliminated by Welshman Dominic Dale 5–0.

He reached the last 16 of the Masters Qualifying before losing 5–3 to Andrew Higginson.

In the UK Championship he again lost his first match against Xiao Guodong 9–5. He lost in the first qualifying round of the China Open against Chris Norbury 4–5.

The Welsh Open was slightly more successful for Zhang. A 5–2 win against Matthew Couch and a 5–4 win against Mark Joyce put him in the penultimate qualifying round. A 5–2 defeat by Marcus Campbell ended his hopes of qualifying.

No-one was to expect what was to happen in the final tournament of the season, the World Championship. In his first match, he comfortably beat Craig Steadman 10–4 scoring a 101 break in the penultimate frame. This was his first century of the season. He then beat veteran John Parrott 10–6 in the next round. He scored his second century, a 113, as he won the last 5 frames to win. In the penultimate qualifying round, he beat Andrew Higginson 10–8 in a topsy turvy match. Zhang led 7–3 scoring a 114 in the process (his highest yet) before Higginson went ahead 8–7. Zhang took the last 3 to go through to the final qualifying round. Ricky Walden, provisionally in the top 16 before the tournament, was Zhang's last qualifying match. The first 16 frames were shared before a 134 break in frame 17 and a 103 break in frame 18 for Zhang resulted in a 10–8 victory. This meant that he would be only the fourth Chinese player to play at The Crucible and the lowest ranked player (number 71) to qualify for tournament. He is also one of only a few players to make it to The Crucible in their debut season. This result denied Walden a top 16 place for the following season.

On March 11, 2010, Zhang was drawn against 7 time World Snooker champion Stephen Hendry in the first round of the World Championship. The match came down to 9 frames apiece, and the tie breaking frame went to Hendry, leaving Zhang eliminated in the first round despite holding a 9–7 lead.

References

External links