Zhao first turned professional in the 2016–17 season,aged 19,and made his breakthrough in the 2021–22 season. In December 2021,he won the UK Championship for his first ranking title and first Triple Crown title,breaking into the top16 of the snooker world rankings for the first time. He won the German Masters in January 2022 with a 9–0 whitewash over Yan Bingtao,making Zhao the third player—after Steve Davis and Neil Robertson—to win a two-session ranking final without conceding any frames . In January 2023,he was suspended by the WPBSA and charged with involvement in match-fixing and betting operations on the World Snooker Tour. Following an independent disciplinary tribunal,he was banned from all snooker competitions for 20months.
After his competitive ban expired in September 2024,Zhao competed on the amateur tour in an attempt to regain professional status. He won four consecutive Q Tour events and finished top of the 2024–25 QTour Europe rankings,earning a place on the professional tour for the 2025–26 season.[8] As an amateur,he qualified for the 2024 UK Championship but was eliminated in the first round. After winning four qualifying matches to reach the main stage of the 2025 World Championship,he progressed to the final where he defeated Mark Williams to win the championship,claiming his second Triple Crown title. Zhao's World Championship victory placed him 11th in the world rankings on his return to the professional tour in June 2025.
Early life
Born on 3 April 1997,Zhao was raised in the Songgang subdistrict of Bao'an,Shenzhen,Guangdong.[9][10] His father,Zhao Xiaowei,who transferred from Xi'an to Songgang in 1995,[11] is a finger reconstruction surgeon[11][12] and the vice president of Songgang People's Hospital as of the 2010s.[13][14][15][16] Zhao's mother Wen Anxiao is a Songgang local and the head nurse of the same hospital as of the 2010s.[14][17]
Zhao's early exposure to snooker was shaped by Shenzhen,which is known for having a well-established snooker culture,as the sport spread across the British Hong Kong–Shenzhen border in the 1980s.[10][18] Zhao began playing at age eight on snooker tables set up outside stores near his house.[19] As he was not tall enough for the snooker table,he made up his height by wearing roller skates when practising at a snooker training club in Luohu,Shenzhen,partly to "look cool".[10] He could move around the table quickly on the skates and developed the habit of quick firing.[13] His parents set up a snooker table in their house when Zhao was ten years old.[10]
After graduating from Songgang No.1 Elementary School,he dropped out of Songgang Middle School in 2009 to train full time.[10] It was rare in China for the family's only child to have parental support for quitting middle school. In 2013,he trained at the newly established WPBSA-CBSA Snooker Academy in Changping,Dongguan.[18]
Career
2012–2016:Amateur career
This boy was astonishingly good and better than anybody I have ever seen at that age – and that includes Ronnie O'Sullivan!
As a wildcard entrant, he defeated former world champion Ken Doherty at the professional ranking tournament, the 2012 International Championship.[24] He then lost in a deciding frame 5–6 to Matthew Stevens in the last 32.[25] Having also earned his way to the last32 of two other events, Zhao began to gain a reputation as a "Wildcard Menace".[26]
Zhao met Ronnie O'Sullivan in the second round of the 2016 English Open. Breaks of 130, 107 and 80 gave him a 3–2 lead, but he missed chances to take the win and was defeated 3–4. O'Sullivan said afterwards that Zhao's attacking style of play had reminded him of seven-time World Champion Stephen Hendry at a similar age.[38] Zhao qualified for the 2017 German Masters by beating Li Hang 5–3 and John Higgins 5–1, and a 5–0 whitewash of Sunny Akani saw Zhao reach the last16 of a ranking event for the first time. He held a narrow 4–3 advantage over Ali Carter but lost the last two frames.[39] He also reached the third round of the Gibraltar Open before losing 3–4 to Mark Williams.[33]
Zhao was not ranked high enough at the end of the 2017–18 season to retain his spot on the World Snooker Tour, so he entered 2018 Q School in a bid to win back his place.[40][41] He defeated Dechawat Poomjaeng in the second event final of QSchool to regain his professional status.[42] He reached his first professional ranking semi-finals at the 2018 China Championship, where he lost 4–6 to Mark Selby.[43] He progressed to the quarter-finals of the Welsh Open, losing 2–5 to eventual finalist Stuart Bingham.[44] Zhao qualified for the World Snooker Championship for the first time in 2019 but lost 7–10 to Selby in the first round.[45]
In the 2019–20 season, Zhao reached the last16 stage of four ranking events and the quarter-finals of the 2020 German Masters, elevating his world ranking to 29th by the end of the season. Snooker professionals Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and Alan McManus all suggested at the time that Zhao could potentially become a leading player in world snooker due to his enormous potential.[46] In December 2020, Zhao reached the quarter-finals of the World Grand Prix; after beating Jamie Jones 4–2 in the first round and John Higgins 4–3 in the second, he was defeated 3–5 by Jack Lisowski.[47]
In January 2023, the sport's governing body, the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), suspended Zhao as part of a match-fixing investigation involving ten Chinese players.[54] On 6June 2023, an independent disciplinary commission ruled that Zhao had not himself fixed any matches, and his involvement was limited to placing bets on behalf of another player (Yan Bingtao) on two of Yan's matches. Zhao was ruled "liable as a party to" the two match fixes in question, which both took place in March 2022: Yan vs Ricky Walden at the 2022 Welsh Open and Yan vs Oliver Lines at the 2022 Turkish Masters. The ruling stated that Zhao had "shown genuine remorse for his actions".[55]
The commission noted the circumstances contributing to Zhao's actions, pointing out that the Chinese players involved in the case lived in close proximity to one another, were "heavily reliant on each other socially and financially", and unable to return to their native China during the Covid-19 pandemic. The situation they found themselves in may have led to loneliness, boredom and isolation, as well as facing the pressure of financial difficulties leading to the onset of "ill-judged gambling and betting habits". It was also noted that the young Chinese players were "particularly susceptible to influence and manipulation from the older Chinese snooker players, who took them under their wing".[55]
Zhao was banned for 30 months and ordered to pay £7,500 in costs, but the WPBSA reduced the ban to 20months because of Zhao's early admissions and his guilty plea.[56][57] The Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association (CBSA) upheld the original 30-month ban. WPBSA regulations state that players need to be in "good standing" with their national federation to compete on the World Snooker Tour.[58] The chair of the WPBSA, Jason Ferguson, then confirmed that Zhao's 30-month ban would apply only to events sanctioned and governed by the CBSA. He was therefore eligible to enter the 2024–25 QTour after 1September 2024 (the date on which the WPBSA ban expired), as well as any other amateur competition not sanctioned by the CBSA.[59][60]
2024–25 season: World Championship winner
Zhao in 2025
After his competitive ban had expired, Zhao joined the amateur QTour in the hope of regaining professional status; his first post-ban match was in September 2024 at QTour Event2 in Sofia.[61] In October, he won QTour Event3 in Stockholm;[2] in the final frame of his 4–1 win over Shaun Liu in the last-64, Zhao became the first player to make a maximum break on the QTour.[62] He won QTour Event4 in Manchester in November, defeating Ryan Davies 4–2 in the final. On his run to the trophy, he made another maximum break in his 4–1 quarter-final win over Oliver Sykes, as well as three centuries in defeating Craig Steadman 4–1 in the semi-finals.[3][63]
On 5 November 2024, the WPBSA and WST announced that Zhao would be invited to play in the UK Championship (an event he had won in 2021) as a WPBSA qualifier, on account of his winning QTour Event3.[64] He won four qualifying matches to progress to the main stage of the UK Championship but was then eliminated 5–6 by Shaun Murphy in the first round.[65][66][67] Zhao won QTour Event5 in Vienna in December 2024 and QTour Event6 in Mons, Belgium, in January 2025, defeating Australian Ryan Thomerson 4–2 and Iran's Ehsan Heydari Nezhad 4–1 in the finals, respectively; at this stage, he had won four straight events and 32 consecutive matches on the QTour.[4][5] His performance in Event6 guaranteed his place at the top of the QTour Europe rankings list, which secured him a new two-year tour card for the 2025–26 season.[6][7] Finishing top of the QTour Europe rankings list also granted Zhao a spot in the qualifying draw for the 2025 World Snooker Championship.[68][5]
He won all four of his qualifying matches at the World Championship, earning himself a place in the main stage of the tournament—only the third amateur-ranked player ever to do so.[69] He defeated Jak Jones 10–4, Lei Peifan 13–10 and Chris Wakelin 13–5 to reach the semi-finals,[70] where he beat seven-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan 17–7 with a session to spare .[71] He then defeated Mark Williams 18–12 in the final to win his first world title.[72] Zhao became the first Chinese player, the first Asian player, and the first amateur to win the World Snooker Championship.[73][74] He was the fourth player to have won the title after appearing in the qualification event; the other three qualifiers who went on to lift the world trophy were Alex Higgins in 1972, Terry Griffiths in 1979, and Murphy in 2005.[75]
As a result of winning the title, Zhao attained professional status based on ranking points attained during the season, and he entered the world snooker rankings at number11.[76] The tour card that Zhao had previously attained by topping the QTour Europe rankings was awarded to Dylan Emery, who had finished in second place.[77] Zhao finished the 2024–25 season having played 49 matches since his return to competition and winning 47 of them.[78][76] He was barred from entering events in mainland China until July 2025, as his original 30-month competitive ban was upheld by the CBSA.[79]
Zhao's first tournament of the new season after winning the World Championship was the 2025 Shanghai Masters. He reached the semi-finals where he was defeated 5–10 by Kyren Wilson.[80] This was the end of a 26-match winning streak for Zhao, following his first-round loss to Murphy at the UK Championship the previous year.[80]
↑ Players qualified through Q School start the season without ranking points.
↑ He was an amateur after his ban ended on 1 September 2024.
↑ Zhao initially entered the tournament through the qualifying stages played in November and had progressed to play in the televised stages in Berlin. However, before the main event started, he was suspended by the WPBSA due to a match-fixing investigation and was subsequently withdrawn from the tournament.
↑ The event was called the Players Tour Championship Grand Final (2012–13 to 2015–16).
↑ The event was called the World Masters of Snooker (2023–24).
↑ Zhao had initially been invited to play in the Masters but was suspended by the WPBSA the week before the tournament started due to a match-fixing investigation and was subsequently withdrawn from the tournament.
↑ The event was called the Riga Open (2014–15 to 2015–16).
1 2 3 4 5 薛永利; 刘嘉雯, eds. (6 May 2025). 13岁训练画面曝光！深圳小伙创造历史[13-year-old training footage exposed! Shenzhen boy makes history]. ThePaper.cn (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 7 May 2025.
1 2 赵小伟[Doctor Zhao Xiaowei's appointment registration]. JD Health (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 7 May 2025. Retrieved 7 May 2025.
↑ Zhao Xiaowei; Wang Wei; Han Yun; Chen Feng; Hu Hongyong; Liu Guolong (2006). 皮肤软组织扩张术再造拇指[Thumb reconstruction with skin and soft tissue expansion]. Chinese Journal of Reparative and Reconstructive Surgery (in Chinese). 20 (9): 906–908.
1 2 盛媛媛 (7 May 2025). 赵心童母亲回应其休学打球经历：小孩喜欢，我就尊重他[Zhao Xintong's mother responds to his experience of dropping out of school to play basketball: My child likes it, so I respect him]. Yangtse Evening Post (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 7 May 2025.
↑ 松岗人民医院 (22 May 2017). 我院组织到帮扶单位进行免费义诊活动[Our hospital organizes free medical consultation activities in supporting units]. Bao'an District Public Hospitals' Common Platform (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 7 May 2025.
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