SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Less than $3 per week View Profile The Explainer Talking Points The Week Recommends Newsletters From the Magazine The Week Junior Food & Drink Personal Finance All Categories Newsletter sign up In The Spotlight Xiao Zintong: China's controversial snooker champion The 28-year-old was implicated in the sport's biggest match-fixing scandal before coming back from suspension to take the world title Newsletter sign up Zhao defeated Crucible veteran Mark Williams 18 frames to 12 in Sheffield yesterday, becoming the first Asian player to pocket the £500,000 prize money (Image credit: George Wood / Getty Images) Harriet Marsden, The Week UK The "long-overdue" moment of an Asian player winning the World Snooker Championship for the first time "was supposed to be one of unalloyed joy", said Luke Baker in The Independent. But there is an "air of hesitancy around the celebrations". China's Zhao Xintong "cut a swathe through qualifying and the main stage" in Sheffield to set up a final against Mark Williams, the Welshman "gunning for his fourth Crucible title". But Williams "proved no match" for the 28-year-old, who ended with 18 frames to 12 yesterday in "comfortable fashion", becoming the first Asian player to pocket the £500,000 in prize money. "So far, so fairytale." But Xintong, nicknamed The Cyclone, was only competing as an amateur because he'd recently returned from a 20-month ban for his involvement in snooker's biggest match-fixing scandal, making him the "most complicated" champion in the sport's history. Subscribe to The Week Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives. SUBSCRIBE & SAVE Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. Snooker's 'dark side' It is "surprising" that Zhao is China's first world snooker champion, said The i Paper. The game arrived in China in the 1980s, taking off after it became part of the Asian Games in 1998, but now the country boasts about 300,000 snooker clubs. Out of the last 32 players at this year's World Championship, a "record" 10 were Chinese. During the Covid pandemic, Ding Junhui (the first Chinese player to become world no. 1, in 2014) set up a snooker academy – a "kind of finishing school" – in South Yorkshire. Nearby Sheffield, home of the World Championship, became an "outpost of Chinese snooker". And that was where and when "snooker's dark side took hold". In early 2023, 10 Chinese players were charged with varying degrees of match-fixing. Many were under significant financial pressure from travelling abroad to compete in tournaments, as well as "ill-judged gambling and betting habits", according to the independent report. Unable to return home due to the pandemic, they had become "lonely and isolated". "Established players Liang Wenbo and Li Hang capitalised on their vulnerability", said The i Paper. Those two were banned for life for their part in the "biggest scandal in the sport's history". Zhao was the most high-profile player involved, having won the "prestigious" UK Championship in 2021 and reaching No. 9 in world rankings. But the report painted him as a "victim of sorts". He alone among the 10 did not personally fix any matches, but accepted charges of being party to another player fixing two matches, and betting on matches himself. He was "not a ringleader"; he felt he had "no other option". 'The game's missed him' Zhao was given a 30-month suspension, reduced to 20 months after an early admission and guilty plea. He was forced to start from scratch as an amateur, playing qualifying school tournaments to earn a tour card. "Two years ago I made a little mistake, now I've come back," Zhao told the BBC's Jamie Broughton in November last year. "I've practised every day. I knew I would come back so I need to keep confident in myself." He apologised publicly, "bemoaning his own stupidity and pledged to come back to the game – in the backwaters of the amateur ranks – a better man", said The Times. Since he returned in September, he has won 47 of his 49 matches, and as a qualifier his journey to the world title was "longer than any other player in Crucible history", taking in nine rounds and 172 frames. "There can be little doubt that he has earned it." Zhao rejoins the professional circuit next season as world no. 11 – but he is technically still banned from playing in China until July, as his sentence there wasn't reduced. It will "make for an awkward piece of small print to gloss over when he flies back to his homeland" today. Although an estimated 150 million people in China watched the final, it still "remains to be seen" whether Zhao will be "lauded as a national hero", said the Daily Mail. But Ronnie O'Sullivan, arguably the greatest living player – who Zhao demolished in the semi-finals – remains one of his "staunchest supporters". "The game's missed him," said O'Sullivan. Zhao's win "will just be amazing for snooker, and his life as well". Explore More Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com Contact me with news and offers from other Future brandsReceive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsorsBy submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. Harriet Marsden, The Week UK Social Links Navigation Harriet Marsden is a writer for The Week, mostly covering UK and global news and politics. Before joining the site, she was a freelance journalist for seven years, specialising in social affairs, gender equality and culture. She worked for The Guardian, The Times and The Independent, and regularly contributed articles to The Sunday Times, The Telegraph, The New Statesman, Tortoise Media and Metro, as well as appearing on BBC Radio London, Times Radio and “Woman’s Hour”. 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