RICKY Walden has rocketed into the world’s top 10 for the first time after winning the second ranking title of his career.
The Chester potter moved up to 10th in the standings and pocketed a cool £75,000 as reward for his brilliant victory at the Wuxi Classic in China.
Walden has been tipped for the very top ever since his stunning success at the 2008 Shanghai Masters.
But the 29-year-old, who swept aside new world number 12 Stuart Bingham 10-4 in Sunday’s final, is not getting ahead of himself.
Walden said: “I’m just looking forward to playing.
“It’s such a full calendar that you know that if you have a bad result one week you can have a good go the next week and try to redeem the result.
“I’ve not got any targets. I just want to keep enjoying my snooker, travelling to as many tournaments as I can and just play well, like I’ve started to this week.”
Walden was recently challenged by 1986 world champion Joe Johnson to ‘believe’ he has what it takes to compete consistently on the big stage.
The former Sealand player certainly took up the challenge at what was his first event of the 2012-13 season.
Walden beat Zhu Yinghui 5-0, Joe Perry 5-4, Robert Milkins 5-3 and Marcus Campbell 6-1 to set-up a showdown with the in-form Bingham.
Bingham had knocked out Peter Ebdon, Ken Doherty and world number one Mark Selby on route to the final.
But the 36-year-old from Essex had no answer to Walden, who stormed into a 9-1 lead and then held his nerve to seal a comfortable 10-4 win.
Bingham did, however, became only the third player in snooker history – alongside John Higgins and Stephen Hendry – to score a maximum 147 break in a ranking final.
Walden, who used to co-own The Q Bar on Volunteer Street, said: “I was just trying to hang in there and just keep doing what I was doing, playing solid stuff, keeping it tight, as tight as I can and hoping my chance would come and I took it in the end. I’m very, very pleased.”
Former English under 17s and world U21s champion Walden has built a big following in China after winning the Shanghai Masters fours year ago.
He was delighted to pick-up the Wuxi Classic trophy, which was exquisitely crafted over three months by China’s most renowned teapot maker.
Walden, who has remained in Asia for this week’s Sangsom Six Red World Championship in Thailand, said: “The people have been great, the fans have been great, Wuxi is a great city and the trophy is unbelievable so it’s an honour for me to win for the first time.”
