In February 2004, Ding was awarded a wildcard entry to the Masters in London, where, in the first round, he defeated the then world no. 16-ranked player, Joe Perry, before narrowly losing 6–5 in the second round to experienced top player Stephen Lee after holding a 2–5 lead over him. His performance favourably impressed many commentators, who since then rated him a likely future World Champion.
In March 2005, he celebrated his 18th birthday by reaching the final of the China Open in Beijing, along the way defeating world top-16 ranked players Peter Ebdon, Marco Fu and Ken Doherty. In that final he played against then world no.-3-ranked Stephen Hendry, whom he beat by 9 frames to 5, to score his first ranking tournament win. 110 million people watched the final against Hendry on China's national sports channel CCTV-5 – by far the biggest TV audience ever recorded for a snooker match.
In December 2005, he beat another crop of world top-16 players, namely Jimmy White, the late Paul Hunter and Joe Perry once more on his way to reaching the final of another major tournament, the UK Championship at the Barbican Centre in York. This time he met the resurgent snooker legend Steve Davis, and defeated him by ten frames to six, in doing so becoming the first player from outside Britain or Ireland to win that particular title. Following this victory, his world ranking was provisionally raised from 60 (62 at the start of the season) to 31. At the end of the season, he was ranked 27th.
In the 2006 China Open he gave his home crowd a good run for their money, but lost 6–2 to eventual winner Mark Williams in the semi-finals.
On 19 August 2006, he beat Stephen Lee 6–1, and reached the final of the Northern Ireland Trophy, meeting Ronnie O'Sullivan in the final the following day. He beat O'Sullivan 9–6 to claim his third ranking tournament win, becoming only the third person ever to do so before his twentieth birthday, after O'Sullivan and John Higgins. This win pushed his provisional world ranking position up to fifth.
In December 2006, he won three gold medals at the Asian Games, winning the Single, Double and Team Snooker competitions. The following week, he reached, as the defending champion, the quarterfinal stage of the 2006 UK Snooker Championship,[13] and subsequently lost to his practice partner and eventual winner, Peter Ebdon, by 9 frames to 5.
