Liu Song (snooker player)

Liu Song
birthday	8th December 1983 (age 36)
place of birth	Tianjin
nationality	People's Republic of China
professional	2003-2005, 2006-2012
Prize money	£ 86,438
Highest break	140
Century Breaks	47
Main tour successes
World championships	-
Ranking tournament victories	-
Minor tournament victories	-
World rankings
Highest WRL place	53 ( 08/09 )

Liu Song ( Chinese  劉 菘  /  刘 菘 , Pinyin Liú Sōng ; born December 8, 1983 in Tianjin ) is a Chinese snooker player .

Career

Liu Song first drew international attention when he reached the quarterfinals of the IBSF U21 World Championship in 2002 . His compatriot Ding Junhui proved to be the stronger player even then, and after defeating Liu he also won the title. A year later, Liu made it to the final, in which he was defeated by the Australian Neil Robertson .

The success helped him to get a wildcard for the following snooker main tour of the professional players . In his debut year, he was the first player from the People's Republic to qualify for the main round of a major tournament. At the Welsh Open in January 2004 he was in the first main round of a world ranking tournament, where he was defeated by the later semi-finalist, the Hong Kong-Chinese Marco Fu , with 3: 5. But it was the only highlight of his first attempt on the Main Tour, he couldn't hold on there.

With the victory on the PIOS Tour 2005/06 he quickly regained his professional status. This time he was able to assert himself among the professionals by reaching the fourth qualifying round at the World Cup and ended the season 72nd in the world rankings. His best season so far followed; In 2007/08 he reached the final round twice and while he was eliminated in the first round of the Northern Ireland Trophy , he achieved his greatest success to date with the quarter-finals at the Snooker Grand Prix in Scotland. After he had previously defeated Stephen Maguire , Matthew Stevens and Dave Harold , among others , he was only stopped by the eventual tournament winner Marco Fu. Together with other successes in the qualifying rounds it brought Liu Song 53rd place in the snooker world rankings .

There followed a year in which the opening match in qualifying was usually his last, only in the Northern Ireland Trophy and the World Cup he progressed one round each. The successful previous year, however, kept him in the two-year ranking for the world rankings among the best 64. This continued in the 2009/10 season. He only escaped early elimination at the Masters , which is not a ranking tournament, and at the Welsh Open. There he reached the round of 32 again six years after his final round debut. This did not bring him enough points and so he dropped out of the Main Tour a second time.

The following year, Liu benefited from the suspension of John Higgins at the beginning of the season , because the Asian Association nominated him as a successor in the first three professional tournaments. At the World Open 2010 he was able to use his chance and for the first time in his career made it to the round of 16 of a world ranking tournament. Previously, he had already shown rising form by reaching the quarter-finals at the fourth event of the Players Tour Championship , a minor ranking tournament series open to amateurs.

Liu Song received a special award in March 2010 when he became the first Chinese player to receive coaching status from the World Snooker Association .

Web links

• Player Profile on World Snooker (English) ( Memento of 7 December 2010 at the Internet Archive )
• Player profile on Pro Snooker Blog (English)
• Liu Song at snooker.org
• Liu Song (snooker player) in the snooker Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Profile of Liu Song (snooker player) on CueTracker (as of January 17, 2016)
2. ↑ Grove Leisure - pTC4: Sheffield 14-16 August 2010
3. ^ Grove Leisure - Liu Song attains World Snooker coaching badge

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Liu is the family name here, Song is the first name.