Click here for photos from the International Championship, courtesty of Yu Yan and Tai Chengzhe. For all the results from the tournament, click here.

Ding Junhui suprised many earlier in the season, winning a second ranking title in China (Shanghai Masters) after years of struggling at events in his home nation.

He followed this up straight away with winning the next big event, the Indian Open. Then today at the International Championship in Chengdu, China, he became the first player to win three ranking titles in a row for close to 20 years, beating Marco Fu 10-9 in the final.

From the start of the match it was an extremely high quality encounter between the two in-form players, with Ding making four century breaks to take a narrow 6-4 lead heading in to the evening session. 

Hong Kong's Fu was the most positive when they resumed, taking the next three frames in a row with top runs of 105 and 71 to go 7-6 up. Apart from a 65 by Ding in the 14th frame, the next couple of frames were scrappy affairs until it went to 8-8 in this best-of-19 clash.

Fu edged another close frame on the colours to go one away from victory until Ding responded in the next with a 58 after Fu only managed to score 4. This thrilling final was going down to the wire!

Marco Fu - Runner Up

Ding got in and only could score 8, before another Fu safety error allowed the former UK and Masters champion to get another scoring chance and he grabbed it with both hands, making a fabulous 91 under pressure to take the title and the £125,000 first prize.

After waiting years for a first ranking final between two Asian players we all of a sudden have three in a row and all of them were won by China's best ever professional, Ding Junhui. 

Neil Robertson was the best player in the early stages of this season and for all the century breaks he made and frames he won, he only came away with one trophy, the Wuxi Classic. Ding meanwhile now has three ranking titles to his name and no one would put it past him to add a fourth at the UK Championship in York next month.

Special note goes out to Fu who is having the best year of his career as well, winning the Australian Open and he has also played some amazing snooker in Chengdu this week. No one would be surprised to see him add another trophy to his collection this season.

Once again, a huge congratulations to Ding Junhui for his 9th ranking title victory. He has now won the UK Championship, The Masters and the International Championship. The only blot on his snooker CV is the World Championship title. Will it be him lifting the famous trophy at the Crucible next May?