HOLT AND FU IN BAGGAGE RECLAIM

There were short-lived scares for both Michael Holt and Marco Fu in China in the monthly game of baggage Russian roulette risked by the top players on their global travels.

Nottingham’s Holt, who enjoyed a fine run to the semi-finals at the Shanghai Masters 12 months ago, arrived with his cue but not his luggage, including all his playing attire. Happily for the world No23, the missing bag turned up from Bangkok on the Sunday night, in time for being one of the first matches on table on Monday afternoon against wildcard Yuan Sijun.

And Fu, flying from London, was reunited even quicker with his luggage which arrived just a few short hours later on a flight from Heathrow.

It takes a lot to rattle Marco Fu. After all, we are talking here about a man that man when unwillingly and wrongly dragged into the ‘Chinese cheating’ row a couple of years ago responded with the sledgehammer blow: “Everyone is entitled to their opinion.” So it should come as no big surprise that he is not in the least bit fussed when it comes to how he is regarded when it comes to nationality. His birthplace of Hong Kong, of course, has technically for many years been part of China but the 36-year-old Fu insist he would be happy to be introduced as being from the Moon as long as he is winning.

World No9 Fu said: “I don’t mind at all whether people write Hong Kong or China in reports, or when I am introduced into the arena. I see myself as both from Hong Kong and Chinese, it’s really like saying Jimmy White is from London. He is also from England. Hong Kong is still a special administrative region. It is Chinese but even there has kept some separate identity. I mainly get introduced in the UK as being from Hong Kong, in China tournaments they would say ‘China Hong Kong’. It is a bit different, because they wouldn’t say ‘China Shanghai’ just because a player came from Shanghai. And then in the Asian Games there are three separate teams, China, China Hong Kong and China Macau.”