TWENTY-FIVE years after blazing a trail as the first Asian player to gatecrash the snooker elite, James Wattana will head into this year's UK Championship intent on relishing every moment of his unlikely career resurrection.

The 46-year-old Thai faces Judd Trump in the first round at the Barbican tomorrow, fresh from reaching the last 16 of the China Open last month – the first time he has achieved such a feat in a major ranking event since 2006.

In his prime Wattana, who now plays as an amateur with a two-year invitational tour card, twice reached the semi-finals of both the World and UK Championships.

He was ranked as high as third in the world, but could never quite fulfil his billing as the first Asian major champion-elect.

But with many of his contemporaries now long since retired, and the top echelons of the game increasingly filled with young Thai and Chinese players for whom Wattana's exploits effectively paved the way, he maintains there is no reason why the best part of his career should not be still to come.

Wattana said: "I am trying to enjoy playing against the top players in the world and I believe I have a stronger mentality compared to when I look back, and one which might have made the difference.

"I had an eye operation at the start of this season which is helping me see the balls more clearly than I have done in years. I have developed my all-round game much more and I still have my dreams and my targets in the sport."

Wattana became feted in his homeland, receiving his country's highest civilian honour, and thrashed Steve Davis to win the World Matchplay title in 1992.

But his fast-potting game was marred by spells of inconsistency and in 2006 he became the first player to lose a World Championship match 10-0, to Allister Carter.

Now he can only marvel at the production line of eastern talent in the sport, with seven Asian players now ranked in the world's top 50, and Ding Junhui having made the breakthrough that was supposedly meant for Wattana when he won his first UK title in December 2005.

"When I started it was very lonely on the tour because there was only me as an Asian player," added Wattana.

"Now they are doing really well – eventually half of the world's top 32 could be made up of them – and it is nice to think I might have played a part in that."

But Wattana has good reason to believe his own snooker life is far from done, having ensconsed himself firmly back inside the world's top 100 and been inspired by the performance of Alan McManus – just one year Wattana's junior – who reached the World Championship semi-finals earlier this year.

Wattana still commutes from his home in Bangkok to train at the Snooker Academy in Sheffield, increasingly battling the kinds of work permit and visa issues – not to mention financial restraints – which were unknown in his prime when he became only the eighth snooker professional to amass £1million in prize money.

He added: "My targets now include getting back into the world's top 64 then the world's top 32, and there is a glimmer of hope that I can go further than that.

"Everybody who plays the game still dreams of winning the World Championship, and Alan McManus brought some inspiration to me when you see how he can still beat some great young players.

"But of course as you get older everything gets tougher. You have to really do your homework and be prepared for playing someone like Judd Trump, because you know that if you don't play well he is just going to kill you."