Xiao Guodong joins elite club of snooker champions following successful Wuhan Open title defence

The past year has been a seriously transformative one in the career of Xiao, who has established himself as one of the sport’s most consistent and top exponents.

Having gone back-to-back in Wuhan, Xiao joins a very exclusive club of players who successfully defended their maiden ranking event title. Here are the five that have...

Ray Reardon (World Championship - 1974 & 1975)

Professional snooker didn’t formulate a world ranking list until 1977 when they wanted to seed the players for that year’s World Championship which was being held at the Crucible Theatre for the first time.

In order to do this, they decided that the three most recent World Championships (1974, 1975, 1976) would all be given ranking event status - snooker’s first three ranking events - with ranking points attached. It means, at the time, Reardon didn’t know he was playing for points, or that he’d become the first champion of a ranking tournament.

Reardon was already a multiple-time world champion before these ranking triumphs, though, having won the sport’s blue riband title in 1970 and 1973. He’d also won Pot Black, and a few other televised events, and was arguably the best player in the world already - people didn’t need ranking points to work that out.

The Welshman defeated Graham Miles 22-12 in the 1974 world final to retain the title. The following year - with the competition held in Australia - Reardon conjured up one of the greatest comebacks in World Championship history as he recovered from 29-23 down in the final against home hero Eddie Charlton to win 31-30, and therefore technically retain his maiden ranking title - not that he knew it at that point.

Reardon also won the World Championship in 1976 to make it three ranking titles, and four world titles in-a-row. A sixth world crown arrived for Reardon in 1978 - his first (and only) title at the Crucible.

In total, Reardon won five ranking titles. His last came at the 1982 Professional Players Tournament where he was 50-years-old at the time - making him the oldest winner of a ranking event, a record he still holds today.

John Parrott (European Open - 1989 & 1990)

Having first turned professional in 1983, John Parrott reached his maiden ranking event final at the 1988 Classic where he finished second to Steve Davis.

Parrott was also runner-up at two huge invitational events - the 1988 World Matchplay and the 1989 Masters - so he was perhaps due to lift a ranking trophy at some point in the near future.

Just a fortnight after losing to Hendry at the Wembley Conference Centre, Parrott ousted Terry Griffiths 9-8 in the final to win the 1989 European Open in Deauville, France.

The next year, Parrott retained the Euro crown - this time held in Lyon - defeating Hendry 10-6 in the title match.

Liverpudlian Parrott went on to win nine ranking event titles, including the sport’s two biggest accolades in the World and UK Championships which were both claimed in 1991.

Parrott was known as an ‘overseas specialist’ with two thirds of his ranking titles won outside the UK. He also successfully defended the Dubai Classic (1991 & 1992).

Mark Allen (World Open - 2012 & 2013)

Allen arrived on the professional scene in 2005 with a big reputation having won several major honours across the junior and amateur circuits.

He won a high-profile invitational event in China in 2009 - the Jiangsu Classic - but his first appearance in a ranking final came at the 2011 UK Championship where he was denied the title by Judd Trump.

However, just a few months later, Allen got his hands on a ranking trophy at the 2012 World Open in Haikou, China. Having eliminated Judd Trump and Mark Selby in deciding frame finishes earlier in the event, Allen defeated Stephen Lee 10-1 in the final to achieve a dream.

The next year, the Northern Irishman went back-to-back in Haikou, this time stopping Matthew Stevens 10-4 in the final.

At the time of writing, Allen has notched up 11 ranking titles, including the 2022 UK Championship, and consecutive wins on home soil at the Northern Ireland Open in 2021 and 2022. For a spell in 2024, Allen was the world number one.

Gary Wilson (Scottish Open - 2022 & 2023)

From the same generation as Allen - and another player with serious credentials from the non-professional tiers of the sport - Gary Wilson first entered snooker’s top flight in 2004.

Wilson made a significant breakthrough when he reached the final of the 2015 China Open in Beijing, but he had to wait over six years later for his next appearance in a ranked title match at the 2021 British Open. On both occasions, he had to settle for second place.

But Wilson would become a ranking event champion not once, but twice, at the Meadowbank Sports Centre in Edinburgh with successive Scottish Open glories.

In 2022 he dispatched Ronnie O’Sullivan and Kyren Wilson on his way to the final where he comfortably put away Joe O’Connor, 9-2.

The next year, defending champion Wilson survived deciding frame finishes in each of his first three matches before staging a remarkable recovery act in his 6-5 semi-final victory over Zhou Yuelong during which he required penalty points in the deciding frame. In the final, he posted a 9-5 win against Noppon Saengkham to retain.

Later in the same season, Wilson won his third ranking title - again a Home Nations Series event - at the 2024 Welsh Open.

Recently, Wilson got to the final of the Wuhan Open, which leads us nicely on to...

Xiao Guodong (Wuhan Open - 2024 & 2025)

Like Wilson did at the Scottish before relinquishing that crown in 2024, Xiao currently has a 14-match winning streak in the Wuhan Open.

The 2005 China Open is remembered for being a red letter day in snooker history as an 18-year-old Ding Junhui created history on home soil as he defeated Stephen Hendry in the final to become China's first-ever winner of a world ranking event. But in the same tournament, a 16-year-old Xiao Guodong was also given a wildcard to compete there.

Xiao was one of the first Chinese snooker professionals when he entered the stage in 2007. In 2013, he reached his maiden ranking event final at the Shanghai Masters where he lost 10-6 to Ding in the title match. That contest created history as it was the first all-Chinese ranking final.

Twice in three years Xiao made the final of the Snooker Shoot Out but both times he fell just short of the title, including to Anthony McGill in 2017 when the unique one-frame tournament was ranked for the first time.

Having spent considerable time within the world's top 32, Xiao managed to take his game to the next level in 2024 in what is essentially his home event in Wuhan.

'X-Factor' navigated Kyren Wilson (who was world champion at the time), Barry Hawkins and Shaun Murphy in successive rounds before recovering from 4-1 down to defeat Long Zehuang in the semi-finals, and then Si Jiahui in the final.

Dealing with the pressure of being the title holder and number one seed for the first time, Xiao returned the following season and compiled a maximum 147 break during his opening round victory. He then won a further six matches, culminating in a thrilling 10-9 verdict against Wilson - a result that put him inside the world's top eight for the first time.