Dark horses are pulling ahead of homegrown heroes at the ongoing World Snooker China Open, with local ace Ding Junhui and Marco Fu from Hong Kong both crashing out in the first round to a new generation of players.

Pundits are now clamoring around the likes of Tian Pengfei after he derailed world No 14 Fu's campaign at the get-go yesterday with a 5-2 thumping in front of the television cameras.

"Tian did a good job today in terms of controlling and defending," said Fu after his loss to the rising star. "I seemed to play with a top-eight ranked player and he grabbed every opportunity in the game."

The 31-year-old Fu beat English "Rocket" Ronnie O'Sullivan to claim the Snooker Grand Prix two years ago but hit a brick wall against the resilient and resourceful Tian in Beijing.

Tian - ten years Fu's junior - ranks as a double gold medalist from the 2006 Asian Games. In Doha, he partnered Ding in the men's pairs to claim the crown before pulling out all the stops in the team event with the aid of Ding and Liang Wenbo for title number two.

Playing with Tian for the first time, Fu has finally come to appreciate the power of his young opponent.

"I'm much more familiar with Ding and Liang," said Fu. "(But) I watched Tian playing at the Asian Games and he has evidently become much more consistent since then," he added, citing this as the player's biggest sign of progress. "I also felt his strong attacking power. He has a great chance of hitting the world top 16 in the near future."

Tian, who will join Ding on another excursion later this year, this time to a training camp in Britain, is feeling more confident by the day.

"I performed well today since I didn't put myself under a lot of pressure, and I gave my opponent few chances to recover," Tian said. "I hope to achieve better results in the future."

Current world No 11 Ding was an early casualty of the new generation's hunger to spill blood this week. Ding was defeated 5-3 by Xiao Guodong, and to add to the sting, it happened the day before the "veteran" player celebrated turning 22.

(China Daily April 2, 2009)