Snooker: Ding carries hopes of a nation but O'Sullivan is man to beat

The highest TV ratings in global sport over the next week will not be achieved by a Premier League football match or a fight in Las Vegas, and though an IPL cricket match in India might push it close, a best-of-19 frame snooker match that starts in a Sheffield theatre on Tuesday morning is likely to edge it. China will be tuning in, because the future is red.

There are two trends ripe for consolidation at this year's World Championship, which gets underway at The Crucible this morning. One is youth. The other is a surge in Chinese challengers. They coalesce in the form of Ding Junhui, 21, and when he and Hong Kong's Marco Fu meet in the first round early next week, bumper viewing figures are guaranteed in the Far East. As many as 110m people watched live on China's CCTV alone when Ding won the 2005 China Open final, and that wasn't even against a fellow Asian, or in the game's biggest event.

Ding and Fu are joined in Sheffield by two other Chinese: Liu Chuang, a 17-year-old qualifier who faces Ronnie O'Sullivan on Monday, and Liang Wenbo, 21, another qualifier, who starts against Ken Doherty. A victory for Liu on his Crucible debut would represent the single biggest shock in the game's history, and Liang will also need multiple upsets in the rankings and form book to progress too far.

The winner of Ding versus Fu, however, will have legitimate hopes of making the semi-finals, and depending on the mindset of the mercurial O'Sullivan, beyond. Ding was a first-round loser to O'Sullivan last year but is still China's great hope. Fu, 30, last reached the semis in 2006 and won the Grand Prix this season, beating O'Sullivan in the final.

Nobody over the age of 31 has won the World Championship since 1986, when Bradford's Joe Johnson, then 33, stunned Steve Davis in an 18-12 overture. If the trend continues, and there is good evidence to say it will, there will be no more titles for O'Sullivan, 32, John Higgins, 32 (the reigning champion), Stephen Hendry, 39, Mark Williams, 33, Doherty, 38, or Peter Ebdon, 37, to name just six of the former winners in the 32-man draw.

O'Sullivan's sheer natural talent, still head and shoulders above anyone on his day, make the winner of 2001 and 2004 the bookmakers' clear favourite. The Rocket also has a favourable draw, starting against Liu in a quarter that looks eminently winnable.

But The Rocket is still his own biggest opponent, a genius when the mood takes him, and a liability when it darkens. His 2005 quarter-final meltdown loss to Peter Ebdon was a car-crash epitome. He exited in the semi-finals in 2006 (to Graeme Dott) and in the quarters last year, to Higgins, who begins proceedings today against Matthew Stevens.

On the basis of youth and seasonal form, Mark Selby, 24, last year's beaten finalist but with two tour victories this term, should do well. He opens against Mark King. The 2005 champion, Shaun Murphy, 25, is the main danger in that quarter of the draw, while Jamie Cope, 22, a live-wire outsider, can upset Ebdon in the first round in the same section.

The outstanding player in the bottom quarter is Scotland's Stephen Maguire (twice a winner this season), who opens against Anthony Hamilton. Australia's Neil Robertson, 26, looks to be his biggest threat to a semi-final berth. Ding or Fu versus O'Sullivan (implosions permitting), and Selby versus Maguire is a feasible last-four line-up.