Snooker is a big sport in China. Sources suggest there are 300 million snooker players there, which is more than the rest of the world put together.
So it's no surprise that some of the world's best players come from China.
They have been showing off their talent at the World Snooker Championship, which takes place every year here in the UK at the Crucible Theatre in the northern English city of Sheffield.
The World Snooker Championship is the most important event in professional snooker in terms of prize money, prestige and world ranking points.
This year four of the contenders for World Snooker Champion were Chinese – Marco Fu, Liu Chuang, Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo. Liu Chuang and Liang Wenbo are making their debut in Sheffield this year, in fact.
However, only one of those players, Liang Wenbo, has made it to the final eight. Wenbo is currently officially ranked 53 in the world. His best performance to date was when he reached the last 32 in the 2006 Welsh Open, so to get through to the final eight in the World Championship is quite an achievement. He may go even further.
The left-handed snooker pro comes from Hei Longjiang and it is hoped he will follow the success of fellow countryman Ding Junhui.
Wenbo is the first Chinese player to ever reach the quarter finals of the Championship and he just sneaked through after an extremely tough second round game against Northern Ireland's Joe Swail.
After a long and enthralling battle, Wenbo finally won 13-12 and he now faces twice World Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan. This promises to be another difficult game for the Chinese rising star as O'Sullivan reached the last eight with an amazing maximum break of 147.
O'Sullivan would have picked up £157,000 (more than 2 million RMB) prize money but another player, England's Ali Carter, has now matched his achievement in the same tournament. O'Sullivan will have to share the money with Carter, and indeed with anyone else who gets a maximum break before the end of the championship.
译文:
中国斯诺克选手
斯诺克在中国是个大型的运动。据说中国拥有3亿斯诺克选手，比其他地方的所有选手加起来还要多。
因此全球最好的一些选手来自中国也不足为奇。
一年一度的斯诺克世锦赛在英国北部的谢菲尔德市的克鲁斯堡大剧院举行，他们已然在大赛上显耀了其天才。
以奖金，声望和国际得分等级而论，斯诺克世锦赛是职业选手最重要的事件了。
今年的斯诺克世锦赛上有四位中国竞争者– 傅家俊，刘闯，丁俊晖，梁文博。事实上，今年是刘闯和梁文博在谢菲尔德的首次登场。
然而，只有其中的一位选手 – 梁文博 – 走到了决赛的最后八强。文博在当前的国际官方排名榜上是第53名。他至今最好的表现还是2006年在威尔士公开赛上进入前32强，因此进入世锦赛的最后八强是一个极大的跨越。他也许可以走得更远。
这位左撇子的斯诺克专业选手来自黑龙江，人们希望他可以跟上同胞丁俊晖的成功。
文博是第一个到达世锦赛四分之一决赛的中国选手，在结束了与北爱尔兰选手乔·斯威尔德第二轮的恶战后，他悄悄的做到了这一点。
经过了漫长而紧扣人弦的战斗，文博终以13 – 12 赢得胜利，而他接下来就要面对两次获得世锦赛冠军的罗尼·奥沙利文。这就意味着这位中国的崛起之星将有另一场难打的战 – 因为奥沙利文在八强赛中打出了令人惊叹的单杆147分的满分杆。
奥沙利文原本会获得157,000英镑（200多万人民币）奖金，然而另外一位选手，来自英格兰的阿里·卡特在这次锦标赛中比肩了他的成功。奥沙利文会和卡特共同分享这笔奖金，
事实上，在这次世锦赛结束前，他会和打出满分杆的任何一个人分享这笔奖金。