Chinese players set to smash record numbers at UK Snooker Championship in York

Following the completion of the qualifying rounds held in Wigan, the 32-player main draw for the £1.2 million Triple Crown event is now complete.

In total, 12 Chinese players have made it through to this year’s televised phase.

The UK Championship format has changed down the years, but having 12 cueists from China in the round of 32 is a record-high.

This smashes the previous benchmark from 2020 (then, the tournament used a flat draw system with all 128 entrants starting in round one) when nine Chinese players reached the last 32. Last year there were eight.

There are as many Chinese contestants as there are English (also 12). Elsewhere in the draw there are three representatives from Scotland, two from Wales, and one each from Australia, Northern Ireland, and Belgium.

Who are the Chinese players at the 2025 UK Championship?

Of these 12, five are seeded players who are in world’s top 16 rankings, and seven are qualifiers.

Having five top 16 seeds from China for the UK Championship is also a new record - there were four in 2024.

As the reigning world champion - the first player from Asia to win snooker’s blue riband prize - Zhao Xintong is seeded number two for this year’s event.

For reference, the current world women’s snooker champion is also from China - Bai Yulu, who has won that title in back-to-back years in 2024 and 2025.

Three-time UK Champion Ding Junhui is the number nine seed, while fellow countrymen Xiao Guodong (12th), Wu Yize (13th) and Si Jiahui (16th) also avoided qualifying and went automatically into the main draw by virtue of their positions in the global standings.

Zhao, Ding, Xiao, and Wu are all ranking event winners, while Si has been to two finals.

Wu - who turned 22-years-old last month - will be making his first appearance on the World Snooker Tour since his maiden ranking triumph at the International Championship on home soil earlier this month. That result pushed him into the world’s elite top 16 bracket for the first time.

Current Crucible king Zhao will also arrive in York feeling confident having won Riyadh Season Championship, last week.

The seven Chinese players who emerged from the qualification gauntlet were: Zhang Anda, Zhou Yuelong, Pang Junxu, Lei Peifan, Xu Si, Lyu Haotian, and Long Zehuang.

Zhang won the 2023 International Championship and Lei is the reigning Scottish Open champion. Zhou, Pang, and Lyu have all reached a ranking final, Xu and Long have both been in semis.

There are three all-Chinese first round ties at the Barbican: Ding v Xu, Xiao v Pang, and Zhao v Long.

Recent English Open runner-up Zhou will meet record eight-time UK Champion Ronnie O’Sullivan; Zhou was pipped 6-5 by ‘The Rocket’ in the quarter-finals here two years ago.

How Ding Junhui became a UK Championship all-time great

Ding is the original Chinese snooker trailblazer. Having turned 18-years-old during the competition, he changed the sport forever in 2005 when he defeated seven-time world champion Stephen Hendry 9-5 in the final to win the China Open in Beijing to become the first player from his country to win a professional ranking event title.

Later in the year, Ding denied another one of the sport’s all-time greats, six-time world champion Steve Davis 10-6 in the final to win the UK Championship - his second ranking crown.

Not only was Ding was the first player from China to win the UK crown, but the first from outside the British Isles.

The 2005 UK Championship was the first time that a Chinese player had reached the last 32 of the event - 20 years on and over a third of the last 32 field are from the country.

Ding has gone on to claim two further UK titles, in 2009 and 2019, and he appeared in consecutive finals in 2022 and 2023.

Following in Ding’s footsteps is Zhao who won the 2021 UK Championship when he defeated Luca Brecel 10-5 in the final. This was Zhao’s first ranking event final.