Zhao Xintong aiming for unique slice of snooker history at the Tour Championship

Reigning Crucible king Zhao is part of the 12-player line-up for the £500,000 world ranking event that takes place at the Manchester Central between Monday 30th March to Sunday 5th April. For fans in the UK, live television coverage will be provided by Channel 5 throughout.

Qualification for the tournament is exclusively via the one-year world ranking list - that’s cumulative prize money won during all of this season’s ranking tournaments on the World Snooker Tour.

Recent record breaker Ronnie O’Sullivan did made the grade for the event, but elected not to enter. Therefore, 13th-placed Mark Allen received an invite.

Return to form after frustrating start as world champion

Following a patchy start to the season, Zhao is arguably the best player on the planet right now having won back-to-back ranking titles last month, and is the joint-favourite with a number of bookmakers to win the 2026 World Snooker Championship that is just around the corner.

The 28-year-old from China began to find some real form towards the back end of the autumn, making the semi-finals of the International Championship and Champion of Champions in consecutive weeks.

Zhao claimed his first title whilst wearing the world crown at the Riyadh Season Championship invitational in Saudi Arabia after defeating Neil Robertson in the final.

After a dip in form either side of the new year, Zhao produced a dazzling purple patch on the professional circuit in February, starting off by winning the opening Players Series event of the season, the World Grand Prix in Hong Kong - his first ranking title of the term.

A couple of weeks later at the second leg of the Series, Zhao continued his winning streak at the Telford International Centre, eliminating Elliot Slessor, Shaun Murphy, Allen, and then John Higgins in the final to lift the Players Championship trophy.

After 11 match victories on the tour in-a-row, Zhao was stopped by Stuart Bingham in the last 16 of the Welsh Open. At the World Open last week, he won three matches before defeat to Gary Wilson in the last 16.

Joining an elite club of cueists who have recorded back-to-back world ranking title triumphs, Zhao is up to number five in the world rankings, and with no prize money to defend from his total for the next 12 months, he will be aiming to become the world number one in the near future.

The five-time ranking event winner is second on the one-year list - one of the top four seeds for the Tour Championship, meaning he doesn’t begin his challenge in Manchester until the quarter-finals.

Zhao can complete historic Players Series hat-trick

The Tour Championship is the third and final stop on this year’s Player Series. Having ticked the World Grand Prix and Players Championship boxes in recent weeks, Zhao is aiming to complete a clean sweep and make it three out of three.

Such a Players Series full house hat-trick has never been done, but Zhao can be the first player to win all three trophies within the same season, in the coming days.

In fact, only two players have won all three Players Series events since the concept was inaugurated in the 2018/19 season - O’Sullivan and Robertson - but neither claimed all three within the same campaign.

Zhao begins his Tour Championship title tilt on Wednesday evening with the first session of his last eight encounter against either Wu Yize or Chris Wakelin.

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