The sensational Yan Bingtao is on the brink of entering the snooker history books by becoming the youngest ever player to win a ranking event.
Now through to the semi-finals of the Northern Ireland Open, he is just two wins away from beating the record set by Ronnie O’Sullivan when he captured the 1993 UK Championship title aged 17 years and 358 days.
If Yan can lift the trophy on Sunday, he would be 17 years and 284 days and dislodge O’Sullivan from a record which looked unlikely would ever be beaten.
This is a big prize for Yan who has big prospects in the game and a fast-growing reputation as the best young player around – and it’s easy to see why.
Not only does Yan pot incredible balls and take on senior players with a real fearlessness, he also has great attitude and dedication to the game. Perhaps most importantly though, he has a fantastic aura around the table for a player so young.
Yan has been in fantastic form in recent weeks. He has progressed to two semi-finals in the space of a month and is showing all the right signs that his first title is on the horizon.
The established players he has beaten on these runs have really rubber-stamped his credentials. At the International Championship in Daqing he took the scalps of O’Sullivan, John Higgins, Ricky Walden and Jack Lisowski before eventually falling to Mark Allen. This week he has notched up wins against defending champion Mark King, Ryan Day and masterminded a stunning comeback last night against Robert Milkins.
If Yan can go the distance and reach the record books, the speculation around whether he can go on to match the achievements of the greats of the game will heighten.
Could @Vics_Snooker's Yan Bingtao become the youngest ever ranking title winner? #NIOpen
But this is talk for another day as he still he still has work to do first. In the last four, he must beat his 19-year-old compatriot Lyu Haotian who himself has had an excellent breakthrough week in Belfast reaching his first ranking semi-final.
Lyu plays his snooker at the same academy in Sheffield as Yan where practising is more than just a daily routine – it is an obsession and perhaps a key reason for the progression of so many young Chinese talents this season.
Already, we have seen seven different Chinese semi-finalists in events this season and when these two meet this evening there will be plenty of talk around what is becoming a landmark season from the Far East players.
Yan will be aware that more than just a ranking event title stands before him – his victory here would be about standing next to the likes of O’Sullivan in terms of potential and giving the snooker-crazy Chinese fans a new young player to pin their hopes upon.
