Zhao makes history as first Chinese world champion

The long-overdue moment of the first Chinese winner of the World Snooker Championship finally arrived and was supposed to be one of unalloyed joy.

- LUKE BAKER

Yet now it’s here, there is an air of hesitancy around the celebrations – because the man in question is Zhao Xintong.

Snooker is already a huge deal in China, with a market of 1.4 billion 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 its 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-yearold 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 yesterday afternoon, the prospect of doing that to another member of the lauded “Class of 92” threatened to become a reality.