On 3 April 2005, a grinning Ding Junhui lifted the China Open trophy aloft. Just two days after his 18th birthday, a shy, fresh-faced teenager had stunned the snooker world.
At the end of tournament that he’d only been entered into as a wildcard in order to drive local interest in Beijing, Ding had become the second-youngest ranking event winner in snooker history, behind a certain Ronnie O’Sullivan.
And he’d done it the hard way. Solid pro Mark Davis had been dispatched in the wildcard round before former world champion Peter Ebdon, future world champion Stuart Bingham, future world No 5 Marco Fu and former world champion Ken Doherty were beaten en route to the final. In the showpiece, he faced the most successful snooker player of all time – the record seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry.
Ding battled back from 4-1 down against Hendry and went on a tear to record a 9-5 triumph, to the delight of those packed inside the Haidian Stadium. It was later reported that 110m people watched on TV in China, putting the oft-repeated stat about the 18.5m that watched Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor’s black-ball shootout in the 1985 World Championship final on British TV into some perspective.
Snooker had gone global and the Chinese revolution was underway. Bold predictions started to fly. With uber-talent Ding at the vanguard, a generation of Chinese talent would be unleashed. There would be a first Chinese world champion within a few years, Chinese players would dominate the world’s top 16 and the central hub of snooker would shift eastwards from the UK to the heart of Asia.
When Ding, still only 18, won the 2005 UK Championship that December, confidence surrounding the impending Chinese domination only grew. In the final, he even beat Steve Davis, who had been the iconic figure during snooker’s 1980s heyday and was now in the midst of one last stand at the age of 48. If that wasn’t a symbolic passing of the torch, nothing was.
The boom was here and Ding became a national hero.
Yet it took a full 20 years from that watershed China Open triumph for a Chinese world champion to finally emerge. Ding himself came close, reaching the final in 2016 only to lose 18-14 to Mark Selby, but it required someone from the following generation, inspired by Ding, to get over the line.
Step forward Zhao Xintong.
The 28-year-old from Xi’an obliterated the competition to win the 2025 World Snooker Championship and create a landmark moment. He made 12 centuries as he surged through four rounds of qualifying before dispatching Jak Jones, Lei Peifan and Chris Wakelin to reach the semi-finals at the Crucible.
From there, he accomplished something truly remarkable. He demolished the greatest of all time, O’Sullivan, with a session to spare in the semi-final before taking apart another member of the much-heralded ‘Class of 92’, Mark Williams, in the final. He was just a frame away from winning with a session to spare once again and the final scoreline of 18-12 was only that close due to Williams digging deep to win the first four frames of the last session to add a veneer of respectability to the outcome.
It was a special performance from a special player. Even his vanquished opponent was left in admiration.
“He is as good to watch as O’Sullivan was when he was younger,” said Williams in his post-match press conference. “He just strolls around the table and pots balls from anywhere as if he doesn’t have a care in the world.
“Xintong is going to be a national hero now. He’ll be on the front page of every news outlet going and I’m sure there are Chinese companies ready to throw zillions at him.”
The national hero line was one echoed by Jason Ferguson, chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA).
“We are talking about a national hero – he has entered the history books of this sport and in China he will probably be one of the biggest stars there,” Ferguson said.
"Snooker is so big in China. He is young, talented and entertaining and speaks both English and Mandarin. This is going to take snooker to another level.”
Zhao’s ascension was the climax of a two-decade long rise for Chinese snooker and he was standing on the shoulders of one giant in particular.
Although snooker had been having exhibition events in China since the 1980s and there were a smattering of ranking events there throughout the 1990s, starting with the 1990 Asian Open in Guangzhou, things had stuttered by the early 2000s.
The China Open had not been held for three years before a one-year contract was signed for the 2005 event on the proviso that rising star Ding be granted a wildcard.
When he’d first earned a tour card as a 16-year-old 18 months prior, there were no other Chinese players on tour but Ding’s victory turned him into a superstar overnight.
Endorsements immediately flowed and his celebrity grew to the extent that a children’s cartoon series was produced based on his life.
Countless players, including an eight-year-old Zhao Xintong, were inspired to take up the sport, the Chinese authorities invested in facilities to the extent that there are now 300,000 snooker clubs in the country, while the Chinese Snooker Academy, founded in Beijing, became a breeding ground for talent, and some schools even added snooker to the curriculum.
In the decade following Ding’s success, more Chinese players started turning professional although he still ploughed a lone furrow at the very top of the game and became the first Asian player in history to be ranked world No 1 in December 2014.
It took longer than predicted but the new wave of young Chinese talent finally started to properly make their mark in a post-Covid world.
A 20-year-old Yan Bingtao brilliantly won the 2021 Masters to become the first Chinese player other than Ding to win a triple crown event, before Zhao followed him by claiming the UK Championship later that year.
The 2023 match-fixing scandal that saw 10 Chinese players banned, including Yan for five years and Zhao for 20 months, was a heavy black mark but the conveyor belt of talent was becoming relentless.
A record 10 Chinese players, including the returning Zhao, qualified for the first round proper of the 2025 World Championship after a season where the early-20s pair of Wu Yize and Si Jiahui reached ranking finals, while 21-year-old Lei Peifan, plus veterans Xiao Guodong and Ding won ranking events.
“There's been a big improvement in Chinese players,” said Ding earlier this year. “In the past two or three seasons, they've improved so quickly.
"They're showing people how good they are and they've won tournaments, which says they've got the talent, skills and form to play anybody. I would love to see a Chinese player win a World Championship – it would be great for Chinese snooker.”
Ding ultimately got his wish and the country’s investment in snooker, not only back home but also in the UK where there are three academies for Chinese players in Sheffield alone, has paid dividends.
After his semi-final defeat, O’Sullivan said Zhao had the potential to be a megastar in China. With the sport’s greatest prize now in his back pocket, that looks likely to come to fruition.
It may have taken longer than expected but the Chinese snooker revolution is finally here. Now the sky’s the limit.
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