Match-fixing scandal to Crucible champion – fall and rise of Zhao

Zhao Xintong began this season suspended from snooker after a match-fixing scandal but is tipped to be the sport’s new “megastar” after becoming the first Chinese player to win the World Championship.

The 28-year-old, who lives just a 10-minute walk from the Crucible Theatre venue in Sheffield, joined Terry Griffiths and Shaun Murphy as the only qualifiers to land snooker’s biggest prize since the tournament’s 1977 move to South Yorkshire.

His 18-12 victory over Mark Williams on Monday means he is also the only amateur to claim the world title in the Crucible era, and the youngest winner since Murphy in 2005.

Zhao, who hails from Xi’an in north central China, moved to the UK in 2016 and was appearing in the third ranking-event final of his career.

“Winning the championship is the big dream for Chinese snooker,” said Zhao, prior to facing three-time winner Mark Williams in the final.

“When I was eight to 10 years old it was my first time to play snooker and from that moment it has been really far [to get to this point]. If you want to become a good player you need to do this [move away from home], even though it is very hard.”

He won the UK Championship in 2021 and the German Masters in 2022, but his burgeoning career was abruptly stopped when he was one of 10 players from China sanctioned in 2023 following an investigation into match-fixing.

Zhao did not directly throw a match, but he accepted charges of being party to another player fixing two matches and betting on matches himself, and for those offences he received a 20-month ban.

He returned to action in September on the amateur Q Tour and has won events in Manchester, Sweden, Austria and Belgium, while he also qualified for the UK Championship but lost to Shaun Murphy in the first round.

At the World Championship, Zhao had to advance through four qualifying rounds and then get past 2024 Crucible finalist Jak Jones, Lei Peifan and Chris Wakelin to reach the semi-finals.

Zhao, nicknamed ‘The Cyclone’, swept seven-time world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan aside with a session to spare in the last four, to record his 46th win in 48 matches since returning from his ban.

The match-fixing case cast a shadow over the sport in China.

A world final delivered an almost immediate shot at redemption following what Jason Ferguson – chairman of governing body the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) – described as a “heartbreaking” episode that also involved former Masters champion Yan Bingtao.

Yet the nature of that transgression means some around the game believe it could spoil the celebrations of a long-awaited Asian world champion.

“Zhao’s ban has been served and he is perfectly entitled to be competing again, but I’ve found the flowery language since his return somewhat befuddling given the circumstances,” said snooker journalist Nick Metcalfe.

“I was in York the night he picked up the UK title and the announcer shouted the words: ‘A star is born.’

“So this is not some newcomer to the snooker public. It honestly feels at times like praise has taken the place of scrutiny. I’m also not convinced the timing is ideal for the sport by Zhao winning the world title now.

“Coming so soon after the ban, some of the headlines – certainly from outside the snooker bubble – might well be the last thing the sport needs.

“We all presumed that a first Chinese world champion would be a special moment for everyone in the game, almost a moment of unalloyed joy, but I’m sure that won’t be the case now.”

In contrast, Barry Hearn, president of Matchroom Sport which controls much of the professional game, said: “He has served a ban for what some people would call a very minor offence.

“He’s a quality player and I think he’s a nice young man. Rules are rules and you take it on the chin. If you make a mistake in life, you don’t look back, you look forward.

Since the turn of the century, there has been a British winner at the Crucible in every year apart from 2010 and 2023, when Australia’s Neil Robertson and Belgium’s Luca Brecel lifted the trophy.

But snooker’s popularity in China has boomed ever since a shy Ding Junhui defeated seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry to win the 2005 China Open, two days after his 18th birthday.

That encounter was watched by a reported television audience of 110 million people in the country, and since then the nation’s hopes of a first world champion have largely rested on the shoulders of Ding, who was runner-up to Mark Selby in 2016.

Speaking after his semi-final loss, O’Sullivan stressed that in Zhao, China finally had a player with the talent and temperament to fulfil that ambition.

“I think it would be amazing. If he did win, he would be a megastar,” said O’Sullivan.

“He’s still very big in China as it is. But if he becomes world champion it would just be amazing for snooker and for his life as well. He can definitely get over the line.”

China is snooker’s biggest market in the television landscape, making up more than 50% of its global audience.

John Parrott, who won at the Crucible in 1991, said: “We have been talking about it for years and years.

“Ding has been close and a real ambassador for China, but just imagine what Zhao will do for the game over there.