Bond that made indebted playboy a millionaire

Bond that made indebted playboy a millionaire

Family love is driving star Thepchaiya to new heights on the world stage.

Back in idyllic Nakhon Nayok, a young Thepchaiya Un-nooh only used to dream about wearing dungarees and a helmet and netting a technician’s job with the Provincial Electricity Authority.

Thepchaiya Un-nooh with his wife Netanong and children after winning the 2015 World 6-Red Championship.

Little did he know that he would one day be climbing up the world snooker ranking ladder rather than the roadside electricity poles.

For Thepchaiya, the most successful Thai cueist on the international stage at the moment, snooker was merely a pastime some 15 years ago.

However, he now stands in the same line as all other rich Thai sports stars.

The year 2015 has been especially generous to Thepchaiya, whose swashbuckling potting coupled with the natural elegance of a left-hander has been winning him a growing army of fans wherever he goes.

He started off with a second-place finish at the Asian Tour Xuzhou Open in China in January, reached the semi-finals of the world ranking Indian Open in March and followed up with a quarter-final finish in the World Cup team event with Dechawat Poomjaeng in June.

Thepchaiya then entered the history books and earned 2.5 million baht by recording his first professional tournament victory at the 2015 6-Red World Championship to become the only Asian to have won the prestigious event.

He marched into the semi-finals of a world ranking tournament for the second time in his career with a brilliant run at the 2015 International Championship in Daqing, China last week, ensuring another payday of 1.65 million baht.

All this has led to a career-high 36th place on the world professional ranking list, more than 10 places above the spot at which he had kicked off the 2015/16 season in June.

“I was a student at the Nakhonnayok Technical College back home and had never ever thought of playing snooker professionally,” Thepchaiya said.

“There was a small snooker club next to our home in Nakhon Nayok and my two elder brothers used to go there. That is how it started. It was just a pastime for all of us.”

There was no-one around to coach him but he oozed natural talent and people around him couldn’t help but take notice of it.

“It only used to be a fun activity because the aim was to land an electrician’s job, especially in the government sector,” he said.

“Things changed when I was selected to represent the province in the inaugural National Students Championship in 2002 and ended up winning the first formal competition I had taken part in.

“A quick family huddle followed and it was mutually agreed that I should be allowed to have a go at snooker for a few years.”

The fairytale win at his first competition was followed by a string of losses in the finals of the 2002 and 2003 National U18 and U20 Championships.

“Those losses were painful, but without them my career would have derailed,” said Thepchaiya.

“For almost a year, people were raving about my talent but then ‘It Chan’ [Issara Kachaiwong of Chanthaburi] emerged on the scene and focus moved on to him.”

Thepchaiya was the favourite to win the 2003 national U20 title but was stunned in the final by Issara, who was playing in his first tournament outside Chanthaburi.

Thepchaiya said: “I owe my success to a few things: That loss to It Chan because it made me jealous and eager to succeed; a short but very fruitful stay at the WPBSA [Asian academy] and getting married four years ago.

“I knew that I was capable of doing bigger things, and I was already a world amateur champion [in 2008] when I met my wife Netanong.

“It was having a family and being a father of two [a daughter and a son] that rocked me back to my senses and forced me to start taking things seriously.”

After capturing the world amateur crown, Thepchaiya qualified for the 2009/2010 Main Tour — the top flight of the world professional snooker.

Seasoned ex-professional Stuart Pettman, who was in Thailand for an event in 2009, revealed to the Thai media that a BBC documentary had suggested that Thepchaiya was destined for the elite top-16 group within a couple of years.

Thepchaiya, however, lasted only a year on the world circuit and failed to make the cut for the next season.

Thepchaiya threw away the playboy tag “because there is nothing more satisfying than doing things for your family. Without them, I would still have been the under-achiever that I once used to be. A young lad always struggling to pay off debts.”  

When he returned to the Main Tour in 2012, he was a different man.

“On my return to the Main Tour, I played well but was subjected to a lot of criticism,” he said. “Every time I lost a match in the UK, people back home blamed me for spending too much time on the phone with my wife.

“It is only a natural thing for someone with a family to do. What they didn’t realise was that I had to win four matches to make the final stage of an event and it wasn’t easy.

“It is the same family that has made me grow up, helped me change my attitude towards the game and has been my source of inspiration to succeed.

“I managed to keep my place on the Main Tour at the end of 2012/13 season and a new phase in my life began.”

Among Thepchaiya’s prime worries is dwindling interest in sports in the ranks and files of the Thai youth.

He said: “Every sport is facing this problem and you don’t have to be a genius to realise this. It’s the result of the latest IT gadgets which have encroached our lives a bit too much.

“There is a need now to make an effort on a bigger scale than ever before.

“What I think we need is a bigger snooker academy in Thailand and funds to send our potential winners to train in the United Kingdom for longer periods of time.

“Otherwise, chances are that we might run out of heroes and stars and in the not-so-distant future.”

Do you like the content of this article?
COMMENT