Eastern Risings

The seventh-ranked player in China, Bi was No. 1 in Shenyang. (Photos appear courtesy www.my147.com)

AT BARELY 4-foot-11-inches tall with a boyish haircut, Bi Zhu Qing would never pass any Chinese sports fan's definition of a world-beater. That's because in China, the massive popularity of the women's game has so far rested on two fundamental principles: big-time success mixed with a healthy dose of demure glamour.

It's a potent combination parlayed perfectly by the likes of the pioneering Pan Xiaoting, and new stars like 2010 World 9-Ball Champion Fu Xiao Fang and 2009 titlist Liu Shasha, who won the world championship at just 16 years old. Wielding deadly strokes and charming looks, and bringing home the gold that throngs of Chinese fans so dearly love, these young, modern women have become legitimate sporting stars in the world's most populous nation.

Which is why, as the 2011 Women's World 9-Ball Championship progressed over four days in September in the northeastern city of Shenyang, nobody saw the relatively unknown and unassuming Bi coming until it was too late. She turned the tables on expectation as she capped an incredible run and won the world title, first upsetting Fu in the semifinal, and then taking down 17-year-old prodigy Chen Siming in the final, 9-7.

Bi's performance blindsided the throngs of adoring fans. It also capped an emphatic week for pool that sent a shockwave around the women's game worldwide.

This was the third straight year the Women's World 9-ball Championship has been played in Shenyang, and the event has been built up to what is clearly a huge success. A sizable and knowledgeable press corps turns out to cover the matches, with Chinese pool websites like My147.com drawing several hundred thousand visitors a day. The semifinals and final were covered live on China State TV (CCTV), with organizers from the Chinese federation estimating a viewing audience of 200 million-plus. It's little wonder that the event has attracted big time corporate sponsorship; Shanghai General Motors put its name in as the title sponsor.

If nobody saw Bi coming, well, even she wouldn't be surprised. Going into the 2011 championship, her first appearance in the event, Bi was ranked No. 7 in China, 81st worldwide and had never won any pool tournaments of note.

Bi brought with her some solid credentials, however, nurtured by years of government-backed training programs determined to produce winners. She's been playing cue sports for six years in Beijing, the first three of which were spent solely on the snooker table. She has traveled extensively around Asia competing in snooker tournaments in India, Australia, Hong Kong, Macau and Vietnam.

There are literally busloads of similarly talented players coming out of China these days, where the games of pool and snooker have gone from "decadent bourgeois pastimes" to a sport more popular than table tennis, the national game, in a quarter-century.

Anyone who's followed the women's game for the last several years could see what was coming, but this year in Shenyang, the freight train of Chinese pool talent hit full steam and mowed down everything in its path. The tournament began with a solid field of 64 players from 25 countries. Soon, however, it started to look like a Chinese national championship.

Ominous signs for any foreigners started to appear almost as soon as the group stages got underway on Thursday morning. Allison Fisher, four-time world 9-ball champion and last year's runner up, went two-and-out in the group stage, as did former Player of the Year Kelly Fisher.

With two huge names already out, the first match in the round of 32 on the TV table held some significance, as world No. 1 and defending champion Fu faced world No. 4 Jasmin Ouschan of Austria. Unquestionably one of the best players on the planet today, Ouschan simply couldn't keep up with the steadier Fu. The contest was close midway but the 23-year-old Fu won going away, 9-5.

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