Why Zhao Xintong is hoping snooker history repeats in his bid to become world number one at the Crucible

It’s probably something he’s not even thinking about right now, but there is a mathematical chance that Zhao Xintong could end this season as snooker’s world number one.

That’s a pretty crazy thought when you consider this time last year he didn’t have a world ranking at all.

Just over twelve months ago, Zhao was slogging away on snooker’s secondary tier, the amateur Q Tour circuit, in an attempt to regain his professional tour stripes following the expiration of his ban from the sport.

He breezed through the Tour, winning four consecutive events and guaranteeing top spot in the rankings with an event still to go - his avenue back to the big time.

But before his tour card was activated for the 2025/26 season, Zhao was one of several amateur players invited to the World Championship qualifiers. The rest is history; he navigated all four preliminary rounds before winning a further five matches at the Crucible to become the first Asian champion of snooker’s blue riband tournament.

Despite not holding a tour card at the time of lifting the trophy, Zhao was allowed to keep all £500,000 of the winner’s purse on his ranking total because he broke into the end-of-season top 64. Had he been eliminated in an earlier round with less prize money, he would have started the next season on zero.

After a frustrating start to his first term whilst wearing the world crown, Zhao has established himself as the outright favourite for the 2026 World Snooker Championship title following a golden spell of results in recent weeks that have seen him win all three Players Series events - the first player in history to do so. However, the stats are against him going back-to-back, with two ‘hoodoos’ he would need to break.

Currently placed in a career-high world ranking of fourth, it appears likely that Zhao will become world number one at some point within the next several months, and it could be as soon as May at the Crucible.

Professional snooker’s current world number one is Judd Trump, an accolade he has held continuously since August 2024. However, for the first time in quite a while, his position at the top of the tree is in doubt with two players within striking distance to usurp him.

If Trump goes out in round one in Sheffield and Zhao successfully defends the crown, then the Chinese star will climb to the top of the rankings mountain for the first time.

The other player who can end the campaign in first is current Saudi Arabia Masters champion Neil Robertson, who requires Trump to lose in either the first or second rounds, and for himself to lift the world trophy.

When Higgins ended Hendry’s record-breaking world number one sequence

The prospect of Trump departing the Crucible early appears unlikely; whilst he hasn’t been at the top of his game this season, he has still managed to reach five finals on the World Snooker Tour - more than anyone else. But looking back at the snooker record books, there is an identical scenario of results going someone’s way to becoming world number one on the grandest stage of all.

In 1998, John Higgins had a sniff of becoming numero uno for the first time, but he needed to dislodge the all-conquering Stephen Hendry who had been the top dog for over 400 weeks - an all-time record he still holds today.

Higgins completed the first part of the equation by defeating fellow Scot Hendry, 9-8, in the final of the season’s penultimate event, the British Open. That result kept his slender world number one hopes alive for that year - back then, the rankings were only changed at the end of each term.

(For context, Zhao’s recent victory at the Tour Championship was at the penultimate event of the campaign).

But there was only one permutation how Higgins could be number one at the Crucible - he had to win his maiden World Championship title, and Hendry had to go out in the opening round. And that is exactly what happened.

In a bizarre twist, Hendry faced Jimmy White in round one in Sheffield. The two had met in four world finals earlier in the decade, and one semi-final, but clashed at the first hurdle this time with White having qualified for the main draw after falling out of the top 16 at the end of the previous season.

Hendry’s staggering 29-match Crucible winning streak was stopped by Ken Doherty in the 1997 final, and he suffered back-to-back losses at the venue as White comfortably dispatched his green baize arch nemisis by ten frames to four.

That result opened the door for Higgins, and he went on to claim his first crown - defeating reigning champion Doherty in the final - to become world champion and world number one both for the first time, and at the same time.

Should the same scenario of results pan out in 2026 with the incumbent world number one exiting in the first round and a chaser winning the whole thing, Zhao would go top of the global standings, ahead of Trump by just £1,000.