Sanderson Lam () (born 28 January 1994) is an English professional snooker player.
Lam was born to Chinese parents in Leeds, England. His parents moved to England in the 1980s.
In 2011, Lam started to take part in the Players Tour Championship, a tournament series for professionals and amateurs. In the first three tournaments in England, he lost the first match in each case, but at the 2011 Paul Hunter Classic in Fürth, he secured two victories in the qualifying rounds and played Mark Williams where he was defeated 4âÂÂ0. Over the next year, he participated in a further four tournaments. Following the end of the season he entered Q School where he reached the semi-finals of his group before losing to Elliot Slessor who went on to secure qualification for the main tour.
In the 2014âÂÂ15 season, he was able to improve in the PTC tournaments and succeeded in qualifying for the EBSA Qualifying Tour play-offs. There, he was able to prevail among the 16 participants, and win one of the two main tour places after defeating TJ Dowling 4âÂÂ2 in the final round. As a result, Lam was given a two-year card on the professional World Snooker Tour for the 2015âÂÂ16 and 2016âÂÂ17 seasons.
Lam defeated David Morris 6âÂÂ3 to qualify for the 2015 International Championship. On his venue stage ranking event debut, he thrashed Michael Wild 6âÂÂ0, but then failed to pick up a frame himself in the second round against Zhou Yuelong. Lam lost all eight matches he played after this. Wins over Wang Yuchen and Alan McManus with the loss of a single frame helped Lam progress to the third round of the Northern Ireland Open, where he was ousted 4âÂÂ1 by Hossein Vafaei. At the Gibraltar Open, he eliminated Wang 4âÂÂ3, Noppon Saengkham and Peter Ebdon both 4âÂÂ1 to reach the last 16 of a ranking event for the first time, where he would be on the wrong end of a 4âÂÂ1 scoreline against Judd Trump. Lam squeezed past Mark King 5âÂÂ4 at the China Open, before losing 5âÂÂ2 to Kyren Wilson in the second round and he needed to have a successful Q School campaign in order to avoid being relegated from the tour. A 4âÂÂ2 victory over Joe Swail in the final round of the second event earned him a new two-year tour card.
While Lam speaks English as his first language, he can also speak Chinese languages, though not fluently. He remarked "I was born over here but as soon as they see I am Chinese, they think I can speak fluently. ItâÂÂs a shock." "I can speak Chinese, but not fluently. I am still trying to learn a lot. I have got quite a strong Leeds accent, a deep voice, so when I talk in China, they canâÂÂt understand the accent." Although his parents speak English, Mandarin and Cantonese, he mainly speaks English.