World ranking: 15
Last five seasons: 35-377-UR-UR-UR
Date of birth: 08-01-78
Lives: Happy Valley, Hong Kong
Turned professional: 1998
Ranking tournament victories: 0
Last season’s prize money: £89,330
Career prize money: £157,870
Highest tournament break: 143

Marco Fu is snooker’s latest star of the east and has taken over from Thailand’s James Wattana as the standard-bearer in Asia.

His rise up the Embassy World Rankings has been nothing short of meteoric.

Just two years after turning professional, he has leapt from 377th to 15th and claimed a place among the game’s elite.

Fu first shot to prominence in the 1998 Grand Prix. He won seven matches - Ronnie O’Sullivan and Peter Ebdon were among his victims - to reach the final, where he was beaten 9-2 by Stephen Lee.

He also fought his way through four qualifying rounds to reach the televised stage of the 1999 Embassy World Championship, where Wattana proved his master with a 10-8 victory.

Voted WSA Young Player of the Year in 1999, Fu continued his progress last season, reaching the semi-finals of the Rothmans Grand Prix in Malta, where he was beaten 6-3 by Mark Williams, and the same stage of the Regal Scottish.

His performance in Aberdeen, where he beat Robin Hull (5-2), Tony Drago (5-2), Alan McManus (5-4), Gary Ponting (5-0) and John Higgins (5-2) before going out 6-5 to Williams, virtually clinched his place in the top 16.

He had already qualified for the first round proper of the world championship with three victories at Preston and although he was beaten 10-4 by Anthony Hamilton at the Crucible, the hard work had already been done.

“The standard is so high these days that I am proud of my achievement in reaching the top 16 in just two seasons. Now my aim is to win a world ranking tournament,” says Fu.

He was educated in Vancouver but now commutes between Hong Kong and Stirling.