Career
He turned professional in 2010 as the Asian nomination following his run to the semi-finals of the 2010 Asian Championship. At the age of 17, he was the youngest player competing on the 2010/2011 main tour. 2010/2011 season In his very first professional tournament, the Shanghai Masters Thirapongpaiboon made an impact by beating Justin Astley 5–3, Mark Joyce 5–4 and Nigel Bond 5–1 before losing 4–5 to Mark Davis, just one frame away from reaching the final stages in Shanghai.
Thirapongpaiboon made the 74th official maximum break during his third round match against Barry Hawkins at Euro Players Tour Championship 2010/2011 – Event 3, but lost the match 1–4.
With this he became the youngest player ever to make an official maximum break at the age of 16 years and 312 days. Nevertheless, he fell off the tour after one year.
2012/2013 season Thirapongpaiboon came through three qualifying matches, before losing in the final round in both the Australian Goldfields Open and the Shanghai Masters, losing to Liang Wenbo and in a last frame decide to Jamie Cope respectively. This was the closest he came to reaching the main of a ranking event.
He had a very good season in the minor-ranking Players Tour Championship events, reaching the quarter-finals in the fifth and sixth European Tour events.
In the fifth event he beat compatriot Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Liu Chuang and top 16 player Barry Hawkins, before losing 3–4 to Anthony McGill, and in the sixth event he beat the likes of Fergal O"Brien, Ricky Walden and Liang Wenbo, before being whitewashed 0–4 by Mark Selby. He also reached the last 16 of another event to finish 38th on the PTC. Thirapongpaiboon defeated Jamie O"Neill 10–8 and Mike Dunn 10–6 in World Championship Qualifying, but his season was ended in the next round when he lost 8–10 to Matthew Selt.
He finished the year ranked world number 71. 2013/2014 season After Thirapongpaiboon"s 5–0 loss to Ross Muir in the first round of Shanghai Masters qualifiers it was announced by World Snooker that the match was being investigated due to unusual betting patterns.
However, the governing body concluded the case in January 2014 finding no link between the player and suspicious betting activity.
The only ranking event Thirapongpaiboon qualified for this season was the Indian Open where he beat Lü Haotian 4–1, before losing 4–2 to Stuart Bingham in the second round. Thirapongpaiboon was relegated from the tour at the end of the season as he was ranked world number 87, outside of the top 64 who remain. 2014/2015 season Thirapongpaiboon did not play his first match of the season until the opening round of the United Kingdom Championship, where he was thrashed 6–0 by Stuart Bingham.
Thirapongpaiboon"s limited season ended with a 10–6 loss to Robertson in the second round of World Championship qualifying after he had seen off Kyren Wilson 10–3 in the first.
