New Malden's snooker star Marco Fu insists he is in no rush to get back to the top of his game while he recovers fully from his eye surgery, writes Ziad Chaudry.

The popular 40-year-old current world number 14, who trains at Frames Academy & Sports Bar in Coulsden, ended his BetVictor English Open run last week at K2 Centre, Crawley in the second round losing to China's Mei Xiwen 4-1.

Fu underwent laser vision treatment back in January to correct vision in his left eye which obviously sidelined him from the table in the majority of the second half of last season.

"At the moment I'm not trying to give myself too much pressure because I took a few months off last year and towards the end of last season so it's not going to help my ranking too much," said the Hong Kong born cuemaster. "I had a pretty decent season two years ago.

"My ranking will suffer I think for one or two years unless I have a really good run in the next few tournaments. It's going to be tough but at the moment I'm not going to look too much into the ranking. I'm just trying to get my game back. If my game is good then the rankings and wins will all take care of itself."

So far this season reached the last eight of World Open in Hushan, China, going out to David B Gilbert.

"It was my first quarters for nearly 18 months," Fu continued. "I've been struggling leading up to my eye surgery and of course after the surgery as well. I've been struggling with my game understandably during, before and after the operation but I'm slowly getting my way back and it was nice to get to the quarters but I just need to do even better.

"Quarters and semi finals was pretty good a few years ago but now with the way the prize money is distributed then you need to get to the final and win a tournament if I want my ranking to go up but at the moment I'm just trying to enjoy the game and slowly come back."

Fu will be in Daqing, China this Sunday (October 28) where he will play Andrew Higginson in the first round of OPPO International Championship.