‘Hometown hero’ Ding cruises past Burnett to cheer locals

The quietly-spoken Chinese star, who moved to Sheffield as a 16-year-old back in 2003 and trains out of the city’s English Institute of Sport, chalked up a 10-2 win over Scotland’s Jamie Burnett yesterday.

And afterwards he thanked the large contingent of Chinese students and Sheffield folk who had cheered him on.

“It feels good here,” said the 24-year-old. “I get support from the Chinese students here and from the Sheffield supporters.

“Hopefully I can win this (one day). How confident am I? I’m a favourite, but I’m not favourite to win. It doesn’t matter how confident I am.”

The World No 4 has long been tipped as a future world champion, but Ding’s record at his hometown venue is poor. He lost 10-2 to Ronnie O’Sullivan back in 2007 on debut and has crashed out at the second-round stage for the last three years.

The 24-year-old awaits the winner of Peter Ebdon and Stuart Bingham next, and is happy with his current Crucible form. He led 8-1 overnight, before completing the formalities yesterday morning to win 10-2.

“It feels all right, I’m playing quite well,” Ding said.

“I’m just concentrating on my game and trying to play my best.

“Everybody tries hard here so it will be quite a difficult match to get through,” said Ding, who has won the game’s two biggest tournaments outside of Sheffield, the UK Championship in 2005 and this season’s Masters.

Seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry survived a Crucible scare to scrape through to the second round after beating Joe Perry 10-9.

Leading 6-3 overnight, Hendry was pegged back and the match was only decided in a final frame thriller, when Perry missed on the brown.

Hendry will play either Mark Selby or Jimmy Robertson in the next round.