Judd Trump: Yan Bingtao is a potential world champion

Trump, who is on a quest to retain his world title, was full of praise for the 20-year-old, saying "he (Yan) is very mature for his age and he doesn’t go for anything stupid. He takes his time and he has certainly got a chance of being world champion in the future."

The Bristolian went on to add: "It’s also good to have young players coming through. It keeps you on your toes and it’s nice to have the 40-plus players not winning everything all the time."

Still only 20, it is Yan’s age that makes his achievements so far all the more impressive. In 2014, he became the youngest winner of the Amateur World Snooker Championship at only 14 and last summer triumphed at the Riga Masters to become the youngest player to win a ranking tournament since his compatriot Ding Junhui did so over a decade prior.

The sixteenth seed managed to fend off a potential comeback from Elliot Slessor to win his first-round tie 10-7 and he is considered to be the most talented of a growing Chinese contingent in snooker.

Trump is confident this generation of Chinese players will live up to expectations. "The future of the game is in really good hands with these Chinese players, and in the future there will certainly be a more even ratio of players from China and the UK."

Springing an upset on Trump will be a difficult task for Yan considering he has won a record six ranking tournaments this season, especially as Yan almost let nerves get the better of him against Slessor: "I was getting a bit nervous near the end and I was very glad to win when I did because we would have had to come off and I did not want to come back later in the evening."

Trump comfortably beat Bingtao 10-4 in the final of the Players’ Championship in March, so he will be looking to at least make it more of a contest this time around when they play on Thursday at 14:30 live on Eurosport.