Snooker Zhao win could be China's big break

Chain-smoking under the fluorescent lights of a cavernous snooker hall in Beijing, Brother Yuan can't stop smiling. The previous day, along with 150 million other fans across China, he had been at home watching the World Snooker Championship final. Now he's with his fellow cue-heads, celebrating the win of China's first snooker world champion, Zhao Xintong.

- Amy Hawkins

"He's a great role model for young people in China," says Yuan, 55, of the generation Z player who shocked fans on Monday by claiming the world's top snooker prize. "He's bringing the excitement back."

It's a far cry from the 1980s, when Yuan was a young player in Beijing with dreams of going professional. But the industry wasn't well developed, and the money wasn't there. He still remembers vividly the 1987 Kent Cup, a snooker tournament held in Beijing. "All seven of the world's top-ranked players came. Willie Thorne, Jimmy White, Steve Davis... At that time, snooker was only played in Zhongshan Park in Beijing. No other places in the city had it, and most people didn't even know how to play," Yuan says. "I recall two Chinese players participated, but they clearly had very little idea how to play snooker. It was actually quite funny to watch."