Li Yan (born September 17, 1992) is a former professional

snooker Snooker (pronounced , ) is a cue sports, cue sport played on a Billiard table#Snooker and English billiards tables, rectangular table covered with a green cloth called baize, with six Billiard table#Pockets 2, pockets, one at each corner and o ...

player from the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Career

Early career

Li received a wild card for the 2008 Shanghai Masters, losing 1–5 to Anthony Hamilton. At the

2009 Shanghai Masters The 2009 Roewe Shanghai Masters was a professional ranking snooker tournament that took place between 7–13 September 2009 at the Shanghai Grand Stage in Shanghai, China. Ronnie O'Sullivan won in the final 10–5 against Liang Wenbo. Prize f ...

, he defeated

Gerard Greene Gerard Eamonn Greene (born 12 November 1973 in Chatham, Kent) is a Northern Irish professional snooker player. He represents Northern Ireland in international events, as his parents are from Belfast. Greene has enjoyed moderate success in his ...

5–4, before losing to Ryan Day in the last 32.

2011/2012 season

Li qualified for the 2011/2012 professional Main Tour as one of four semi-finalists from the second Q School event. As a new player on the tour Li would need to win four matches in order to reach the main stage of the ranking tournaments. He accomplished this in qualifying for the second biggest tournament on the snooker calendar, the

UK Championship The UK Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. It is one of snooker's prestigious Triple Crown events, along with the World Championship and the Masters. It is usually held at the Barbican Centre, York. Ronnie O'Sullivan h ...

, with wins over Stuart Carrington,

Andy Hicks Andrew Hicks (born 10 August 1973) is an English professional snooker player. Nicknamed "The Cream of Devon", Hicks was a semi-finalist at both the World Snooker Championship and UK Championship in 1995, and the same stage at four other ranking ...

Jack Lisowski Jack Adam Lisowski (born 25 June 1991) is an English professional snooker player from Churchdown, Gloucestershire. He turned professional in 2010 by finishing first in the 2009/2010 PIOS rankings. A left-handed player, he is known for his atta ...

and

Fergal O'Brien Fergal O'Brien (born 8 March 1972) is an Irish professional snooker player who plays on the main professional tour since 1991. Ranked within the world's top 64 players from 1994 to 2022, he has reached his highest position of 9th in the 2000� ...

. He faced former world champion

Shaun Murphy Shaun Peter Murphy (born 10 August 1982) is an English professional snooker player who won the 2005 World Snooker Championship, 2005 World Championship. Nicknamed "The Magician", Murphy is noted for his straight Cue stick, cue action and his lo ...

in the first round of the event and was beaten 3–6. He could not qualify for another tournament for the remainder of the season but did play in all 12 of the PTC events throughout the season reaching, but not progressing past, the last 16 on three occasions. Li finished the season ranked world number 67, just outside the top 64 who retain their places on the tour. However, due to being ranked 43rd on the PTC

Order of Merit The Order of Merit (french: link=no, Ordre du Mérite) is an order of merit for the Commonwealth realms, recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture. Established in 1902 by K ...

he secured one of the eight spots for the highest non-qualified players to play in the 2012/2013 season.

2012/2013 season

Li only won two matches in ranking event qualifiers in the 2012/2013 season. His best results in the minor-ranking

Players Tour Championship The Players Tour Championship was a series of snooker tournaments comprising some minor-ranking events played in Europe, and an Asian leg comprising some minor-ranking events in Asia. The series concluded with a Grand Final, where qualification ...

events were last 16 losses in the third Asian PTC and the fourth European Tour Event, to

Stuart Bingham Stuart Bingham (born 21 May 1976) is an English professional snooker player who is a former world and Masters champion. Bingham won the 1996 World Amateur Championship but enjoyed little sustained success in the early part of his professional ...

and Rory McLeod respectively. He lost seven consecutive games after this, before beating

Robbie Williams Robert Peter Williams (born 13 February 1974) is an English singer and songwriter. He found fame as a member of the pop group Take That from 1990 to 1995, and achieved commercial success after launching a solo career in 1996. His debut stud ...

10–7 in the first round of World Championship Qualifying, but his season was ended when he lost 10–2 to Jimmy Robertson in the following round. Li dropped 17 places in the rankings during the year to finish it at world number 84.

2013/2014 season

The first ranking tournament Li could qualify for in the 2013/2014 season was the Indian Open by beating

Peter Lines Peter Lines (born 11 December 1969) is an English professional snooker player. He has reached the semi-finals of one ranking tournament, the 2018 Paul Hunter Classic. He reached his highest ranking, 42nd in the world, in 1999. He is the father ...

4–2. He then edged out

Jeff Cundy Jeff Cundy (born 1 March 1969) is an English amateur snooker player, who spent a number of seasons as a professional between 1991 and 2007. Career 1991 to 1997 Cundy turned professional in 1991, playing and losing his first match against Tim ...

4–3 to record his first ever win in the main draw of a ranking event, before being thrashed 4–0 by

John Higgins John Higgins, (born 18 May 1975) is a Scottish professional snooker player. He has won 31 career ranking titles, placing him in third position on the all-time list of ranking event winners, behind Ronnie O'Sullivan (39) and Stephen Hendry ( ...

. Li also qualified for the

International Championship The International Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament. The reigning champion is Judd Trump. History The event was introduced in the 2012/2013 season. It was named as the "first overseas 'major'", because the tournament ha ...

and World Open during the season, losing to compatriots

Liang Wenbo Liang Wenbo (; born 25 March 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player based at the Oracle Snooker Club, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England. Liang, who plays left-handed, has reached one Triple Crown final, made three Masters appearances, and ...

and

Ding Junhui Ding Junhui (; born 1 April 1987) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He is the most successful Asian player in the history of the sport. Throughout his career, he has won 14 major ranking titles, including three UK Championships (2005 ...

in the first round. He won more than one match in an event for the only time this season in the

World Championship A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

qualifiers by defeating Elliot Slessor 10–5,

Dave Harold David Harold (born 9 December 1966) is an English former professional snooker player from Stoke-on-Trent. He was known by the nicknames of "the Hard Man" and "the Stoke Potter" (conflating his home city's pottery industry and his profession of ...

10–3 and

Joe Swail Joe Swail (born 29 August 1969) is a Northern Irish former professional snooker player from Belfast. He retired in May 2019 after being relegated from the tour. He has reached ten major ranking semi-finals, including the 2000 and 2001 World Cha ...

10–8, to be just one win away from reaching

The Crucible ''The Crucible'' is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as a ...

for the first time, but he was thoroughly outplayed by

Xiao Guodong Xiao Guodong (, born 10 February 1989) is a Chinese professional snooker player. He turned professional in 2007 after winning the Asian Under-21 Championships. Career 2007–2010 Xiao appeared as a wildcard in the 2007 China Open, and beat t ...

in a 10–1 loss. The result ensured Li would not be among the top 64 in the world rankings who keep their places on the snooker tour as he was ranked number 86 and so he played in Q School in an attempt to earn his place back. Li lost in the last 128 of the first event and the last 32 of the second to confirm his exit from the tour.

2014/2015 season

Li entered the three

Asian Tour The Asian Tour is the principal men's professional golf tour in Asia except for Japan, which has its own Japan Golf Tour, which is also a full member of the International Federation of PGA Tours. Official money events on the tour count for Wor ...

events during the 2014/2015 season, but was knocked out in the first round of each. He again entered Q School, but could not win a match in either of the events, losing 4–3 to both Daniel Wells and Jamie Clarke.

2015/2016 season

Li only played in the

Haining Open The Haining Open is a non-ranking snooker tournament. It was a minor-ranking part of the Players Tour Championship until 2015. History The tournament started in 2014 and was staged at the Haining Sports Center in Haining, Zhejiang, China. The ...

and was eliminated 4–1 in the first round by

Performance and rankings timeline

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Yan 1992 births Living people Chinese snooker players 21st-century Chinese people