Zhao Xintong waltzes to snooker history now faces weight of the past at World Championship

Zhao Xintong has written his name into snooker record books seemingly at will over the last year, but can he conquer yet more history on the grandest stage of them all?

The reigning world champion has not been held back by pressure, expectation or distractions in his first year since winning snooker’s biggest tournament.

After battering John Higgins 10-1 in the semis, he thrashed Judd Trump 10-3 to win the Tour Championship on Sunday night, becoming the first player to complete the Players Series hat-trick in the same season.

Winning any three ranking titles in a season is very impressive, but to land the World Grand Prix, Players Championship and Tour Championship is a remarkable feat given the level of opposition.

Those events feature just the top 32, top 16 and top 12 on the one-year ranking list respectively, meaning you are only facing in-form stars and the Cyclone stormed through the lot of them.

The 29-year-old, who became China’s first world champion when he beat Mark Williams in last year’s Crucible final, is unquestionably snooker’s most potent force right now and has gone clear favourite with the bookmakers to defend his world title in Sheffield.

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However, the more history he creates, the more he faces in South Yorkshire and he will have to have some seriously compelling ink in his pen if he is to write his name into the record books again this season.

The infamous Crucible curse awaits him, as it has done so many before him. No first time winner has ever defended their world title at the venue, with every modern great of the game – from Steve Davis, to Stephen Hendry, to Ronnie O’Sullivan – falling to the curse.

The snooker gods have unleashed the curse with incredible efficiency over the last two years, with Luca Brecel and Kyren Wilson both beaten in their opening rounds as first-time defending champions.

Last year, Wilson enjoyed a similarly superb season as world champ to Zhao’s and many fancied him to lift the Crucible hex, but Lei Peifan was not one of them as the debutant downed the Warrior on the very first night of the tournament.

Zhao’s recent success is also not a great portent of Sheffield glory, however impressive his form appears to be.

No one has ever reached a Players Championship or Tour Championship final and then made it to a World Championship final in the same season. While both events would seem like a good barometer for Crucible success, they have only suggested Sheffield disappointment.

In fact, winning the penultimate event of the season has generally been a blow to World Championship chances, long before the Tour Championship arrived on the calendar in 2019.

Just once since 1998 has a player lifted a trophy in the event before the World Championship and then ridden that wave all the way to the title at the Crucible.

That was Mark Selby, winning the 2017 China Open ahead of a third world title, with the last man to pull this off before him being John Higgins when he won the 1998 British Open before his first World Championship a few weeks later.

Zhao could look a bit further into the past and see that it was a more common achievement when a player dominated the snooker landscape, with Stephen Hendry pulling off back-to-back wins at the end of the 1991/92 and 1992/93 seasons.

The Scot was unquestionably on top of the snooker mountain as he won the 1992 Irish Masters before a second world title and the 1993 International Open before a third.

Since Hendry’s ’90s reign, there hasn’t really been a sustained period of genuine dominance in the game. Ronnie O’Sullivan has racked up a record-breaking amount of titles, while Mark Selby and Judd Trump have both been the best player at times, but true dominance is very difficult to manage on a professional tour packed with quality players and with so many events to compete in.

Zhao could be the one to create a new dynasty of dominance, with Hendry himself saying as he potted the balls to beat Trump on Sunday that we were looking at ‘the future of snooker.’

As the Tour Championship runner-up licked his wounds following a punishing defeat, Trump said of the winner: ‘He’s a great player and he’s going to be around for a long time so it is up to me and a few of the other players to start playing well against him otherwise he’s going to end his career with 100 tournaments or something like that.’

Last week’s Manchester success was Zhao’s sixth ranking title, which have come from six trips to ranking finals, showing that pressure really has little impact on the Cyclone.

His whimsical manner around the table stands up against the toughest opponents, on the biggest stages, sauntering across the carpet and gliding the balls into the pockets as others twitch and stumble.

This ease at which he plays, coupled with his relentless scoring power has seen Zhao quickly build an aura that sees his opponents struggle to find their best against him, so nervous are they that any mistake will see him breeze to a frame-winning break in moments.

As he returns to the scene of his greatest triumph this month, everything we have seen of late is pointing to more glory, but history is pointing in the opposite direction.

What has happened in the past does not mean Zhao will fail to defend his World Championship title this year, but it means that if he does we will be into the next chapter of a snooker career that could rival, or even surpass, any other.

Concerningly for his foes in Sheffield, he said after dismantling Trump in Manchester: ‘I’m far away from being at my best, but I’ll try to get better.’

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