Zhao Xintong becomes the most complicated world champion in snooker history

The long-overdue moment that a first Chinese winner of the World Snooker Championship finally arrived was supposed to be one of unalloyed joy. Yet now it’s here, there is an air of hesitancy around the celebrations – entirely because the man in question is Zhao Xintong.

Snooker is already a huge deal in China, with a market of 1.4bn people dwarfing the traditional hotbeds of this still quaintly British sport, but having their own world champion has always been touted as the occurrence that would send it stratospheric.

The Asian powerhouse has been visited by snooker since its cultural heyday in the 1980s but it wasn’t until the emergence of Ding Junhui in the mid-2000s that the country had their own star to root for. Ding became a national superstar, hoovered up ranking events, won triple crown tournaments and was long predicted to become the first Chinese world champion, although a loss to Mark Selby in the 2016 final remains his best effort at the Crucible.

Instead, it is Zhao who takes the coveted mantle. The 28-year-old from Xi’an cut a swathe through qualifying and the main stage of the World Championship to set up a final against Mark Williams, the laid-back Welshman gunning for his fourth Crucible title and trying to become the oldest world champion in history at the age of 50.

He proved no match for Zhao. With the swagger and flair that has become his trademark, the Chinese star raced into a 7-1 lead during Sunday afternoon’s first session before maintaining a healthy gap in the evening for an 11-6 overnight advantage.

He had demolished the greatest of all time, Ronnie O’Sullivan, with a session to spare in the semi-final and when he took three of the first four frames on Monday afternoon, the prospect of doing that to another member of the lauded ‘Class of 92’ threatened to become a reality.

Williams was far from his best but the relentless scoring and jumping on mistakes by his opponent to move 14-7 ahead quashed any dreams of a monumental comeback. The veteran at least ensured there would be a fourth session when he closed to 15-8 thanks to a gutsy break, yet persistent misses among the balls meant his deficit heading into the evening was an impregnable 17-8, with Zhao needing just a solitary frame for victory.

To his credit, Williams dug deep, notching his first century of the final as he claimed four frames on the spin to force a mid-session interval. However, Zhao regrouped and ultimately got over the line 18-12 in what had, on the whole, been comfortable fashion. Perhaps he was never truly tested in the championship or perhaps he simply overwhelmed his opponents with his consistency.

Either way, China finally has its first world champion. So far, so fairytale. Except Zhao immediately becomes the most complicated world champion in snooker history.

His talent and class on the table are without question. His fluent, left-handed style has earned him comparisons with six-time world finalist Jimmy White. Those are apt but, borrowing the caveat used in the NFL that you should never compare a draft prospect with a Hall of Famer, there is more than a hint of seven-time champion of the world O’Sullivan about him when he’s in the balls. The smoothness when striking the cueball, the attacking verve, the aggressive shot selection all have shades of ‘The Rocket’, so perhaps it’s no surprise that the 49-year-old has been something of a mentor, who has taken a huge interest in his career.

After their semi-final, he predicted that Zhao would become “a megastar” in China with victory in the final. Now that has come to pass, he’s probably right.

But it’s his actions off the table that make Zhao such a complex figure. He was competing in Sheffield this fortnight as an amateur due to only recently returning from a 20-month ban for match-fixing.

The high-profile saga engulfed snooker in early 2023 as 10 Chinese players were charged with varying degrees of match-fixing, and ultimately Liang Wenbo and Li Hang were banned from the sport for life.

Zhao, who was ranked ninth in the world when his suspension began, having added the 2022 German Masters title to his shock UK Championship crown at the end of 2021, was the biggest name caught up in it all.

It is worth repeating that Zhao did not personally fix any matches – hence his punishment being on the more lenient end of the scale – but he was found guilty of being party to another player fixing two matches and betting on snooker matches himself. He saw a 30-month suspension reduced to 20 months following early admissions and a guilty plea.

The reaction in snooker circles was mixed – some wanted harsher punishments for all involved, while others were content that lesser offences received lesser punishments and once bans were served, players were welcome to come back into the fold.

Zhao’s ban expired in September 2024 and he has been playing on the amateur Q Tour since then, winning tournaments in Manchester, Sweden, Austria and Belgium and making the first two maximum 147 breaks in circuit’s history.

That earned him wildcards into qualifying for the UK Championship and this World Championship, as well as full playing rights for next season. He is an amateur in name only and clearly a top-10 talent in the world, as this remarkable triumph showed.

“Two years ago I made a little mistake and now I come back, so I know how important snooker is for me,” said Zhao after qualifying for the UK Championship in November 2024. “I want to come back to the snooker table and get trophies. These are very big lessons for me, it makes me appreciate snooker more.”

Whether he has shown the contrition you’d like from any disgraced sportsperson returning from a ban is open to debate. He gave the above quotes in English, his second language, so deserves a ‘lost in translation’ benefit of the doubt for describing his mistake as “little.” Since then, he has barely been questioned about the ban, with interviews focussing on his performances on the table.

His actions were clearly on the lesser end of the scale, he was open, helpful to the investigation and he’s served his time – if you believe in second chances, there should be no issue. Yet the fact that this is his first World Championship since and he has immediately ascended to the highest heights somehow still leaves a bitter taste. There are simply more questions than answers.

Is it appropriate to laud his exploits without scrutiny? To metaphorically adorn him with garlands and gush over his achievements with flowery language when he’s so recently returned to a sport that he stained with his actions? There may be no correct answer.

And how do snooker’s governing body WST now promote him? Do they celebrate his on-table achievements and pretend the ban never happened or lean into his comeback as some sort of redemption arc? Can something even be classed as redemption when the initial problem was self-inflicted?

Zhao’s victory will open even more doors for snooker in China where his accomplishment will be fervently celebrated. This was supposed to be a joyously groundbreaking moment for the sport that launched it to even greater heights in Asia.

That may still happen but caveats and asterisks will likely persist. How will Zhao Xintong’s success at the 2025 World Championship be remembered? It’s complicated.