Zhao Xintong made history as he became the first player from China to win the World Championship with an 18-12 victory over Mark Williams in Sheffield.
The 28-year-old had extended his 11-6 overnight lead with a dominant display on Monday afternoon to begin the concluding session 17-8 ahead.
Willed on by a buoyant Crucible crowd, three-time winner Williams compiled wonderful breaks of 101, 96 and 73 on his way to collecting the first four frames of the evening.
And 40 years on from the iconic black-ball final when Dennis Taylor came from 8-0 and 9-1 down to defeat Steve Davis, it briefly raised hopes of another astonishing revival.
However, the Welshman, who has already achieved a notable landmark by becoming the Crucible’s oldest ever finalist, six weeks after turning 50, was ultimately only able to delay the inevitable.
Having largely been consigned to his seat, Zhao – whose journey to becoming champion remarkably began 29 days ago and included him having to win four qualifying matches and 111 frames in total – wrapped up a famous success with a run of 87.
It was no more than his scintillating form over the 17-day televised event deserved.
Along with the £500,000 top prize, he will climb to 11th in the world rankings when he returns to the main professional tour next season.
Zhao is the first amateur to triumph at the Crucible, and also becomes only the third qualifier after Terry Griffiths and Shaun Murphy to claim snooker’s biggest prize since the tournament’s 1977 move to Sheffield.
His achievement is all the more extraordinary given he was still suspended from the sport 12 months ago, with his burgeoning career abruptly halted when he was one of 10 Chinese players sanctioned in 2023 following an investigation into match-fixing.
While Zhao did not directly throw a match, he accepted charges of being a party to another player fixing two matches and betting on matches himself, and for those offences he received a 20-month ban.
His win over Williams was his 47th from 49 matches this term and vindicated the bookmakers’ decisions to install him as one of the favourites before the tournament even got under way.
More to follow.
