World champion Zhao Xintong aiming to join exclusive snooker club with Masters title glory

A Career Triple Crown is achieved when a player has won all three of snooker’s biggest events: the UK Championship, the Masters, and the World Championship.

Chinese superstar Zhao has ticked two of these three boxes. In 2021, despite being ranking outside the world’s top 16 and having never appeared in a ranking event final before, a 24-year-old Zhao won the UK Championship at the Barbican Centre in York after defeating Luca Brecel 10-5 in the final.

Just several weeks later and Zhao collected his second ranking crown, at the 2022 German Masters at the Tempodrom in Berlin.

Following his 20-month ban from the sport starting in January 2023 due to his involvement in the Chinese match-fixing scandal during the 2022/23 season - although Zhao wasn’t found to have fixed matches himself - he didn’t feature in a professional event again until the 2024 UK Championship which he qualified for the televised stages.

A few months later - without a tour card and as an amateur invite - Zhao created history by becoming the first Asian winner of the world professional snooker championship.

Having won four qualifying round matches in order to just reach the main draw, televised stages held at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, there Zhao defeated the previous year’s runner-up Jak Jones, Lei Peifan, Chris Wakelin, Ronnie O’Sullivan, and then Mark Williams 18-12 in the final to win snooker’s blue riband event.

It was a remarkable, fairy-tale comeback story; at the start of that season, Zhao was still banned from competing.

Zhao set to appear in only his second Masters campaign

The 28-year-old is back on the sport’s top-flight full-time this season. Following a frustrating start to the 2025/26 term whilst wearing the world crown - not winning more than two matches at any of his first six ranking event outings - Zhao reached the semi-finals of the International Championship, and just days later made the last four of the Champion of Champions invitational.

The following week, Zhao claimed his first title of the season, in Saudi Arabia at the Riyadh Season Championship invitational where he eliminated Shaun Murphy, Judd Trump, and then Neil Robertson in the final to pocket the £250,000 winner's purse.

Since then, he lost second round - after a poor performance - at the UK Championship, and then his opening matches at the Shoot Out, and Scottish Open (in Edinburgh he received a bye for his first match after opponent Robert Milkins withdrew).

In preparation for what is set to be only his second Masters appearance, Zhao is scheduled to be playing in Group Four of the Championship League Invitational in Leicester just days before the 2026 Masters begins at the Alexandra Palace in London.

Zhao’s debut in snooker’s most prestigious invitational event came in 2022, courtesy of his memorable UK title triumph just weeks earlier. He faced John Higgins in round one, bowing out to the two-time champion who compiled two centuries in a 6-2 result. Zhao did have the consolation of making a ton of his own - an effort of 128 in the second frame when he levelled the tie.

Because of his ban at the start of the next year, Zhao has not featured at the Masters since - until now.

Two Chinese players have lifted the trophy before: Ding Junhui in 2011 and Yan Bingtao in 2021.

Zhao can make history at the Alexandra Palace

The opening assignment for Zhao in the capital city is number 16 seed Gary Wilson, with the two meeting on the evening of Monday 12th January. Both cueists are seeking their maiden match victory on the Masters stage. The full round one Masters schedule can be viewed here.

Should Zhao go all the way that week at the Ally Pally, lifting The Paul Hunter Trophy and scooping the £350,000 top prize, he would become the first Asian player to have won a Career Triple Crown, following his UK and World Championship successes.

China’s original snooker trailblazer Ding has been aiming to complete the third - and most difficult - part of the achievement since his Masters glory in 2011. Before then, ‘The Dragon’ won UK crowns in 2005 and 2009.

The 11 players to have joined the exclusive Career Triple Crown club are: Steve Davis, Terry Griffiths, Alex Higgins, Stephen Hendry, John Higgins, Mark Williams, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby, Shaun Murphy, and Judd Trump - in that order.

Trump is the newest member after his maiden World Championship title win in 2019.