The first event of the 2022 Snooker New Year, the Champions League, ended the third group showdown, and China's new generation of youngster Zhao Xintong, surrounded by many top players, won all eight games and won the first game to advance to the third player in the winner group of this tournament.
Due to the schedule of the organizers, the previous two group matches were played in the last month of 2021, and the first two group winners were China's Liang Wenbo and Graeme Dort.
After the New Year's Day, the third group of duels also officially began, the players in this group can be described as strong, the Chinese players are Zhao Xintong, Xiao Guodong and Lu Ning, including Joe Perry, Ryan Dai two veterans, of which Selby and Bingham are world champion winners.
The Champions League differs from other ranking competitions in that the seven players in the group play each other in a round-robin tournament, with the top four players competing in the group semi-finals and finals to compete for the group title. The last straight-out player to eliminate the remaining players continues the loop to the next group.
Before the start of this group showdown, Zhao Xintong was actually not in the group list, because after Mark Williams withdrew from the competition for personal reasons, the organizer invited Zhao Xintong for the second time to finally appear, which is enough to see the importance attached to Zhao Xintong today.
And Zhao Xintong did not disappoint the outside world, the first round of the group match met the world champion Mark Selby, Zhao Xintong with a 3:0 clean sheet results told the world number one, in front of the super accuracy of any defense with a trace of copper leakage will pay a price.
During the first round, Mark Selby tried many times to bring the game into his familiar rhythm, but Zhao Xintong was not affected at all and still won the mobile meeting through his super accuracy, and the final difficult black ball kill of Zhao Xintong in the second set of the two sides also completely crushed Selby.
Not only that, Zhao Xintong's subsequent matches were still hot, and he defeated Stuart Bingham, Joe Perry, Ray Endai, Lu Ning, and Xiao Guodong in six matches to lock in the first place of the group in advance.
In the group semifinals, Zhao Xintong once again defeated world champion Bingham to advance to the group finals, while another semi-finalist, Xiao Guodong, defeated Selby and Zhao Xintong in the group final.
In the group final, Zhao Xintong took the lead in blasting out a single stroke 90+ to reach the match point, and then Xiao Guodong did not want to show weakness in returning to the two strokes of 90+, and Zhao Xintong accurately reappeared on the field in the decider, and shot out a single stroke 60+ directly overscore to win the group championship.
Looking at the entire group of duels, Zhao Xintong can be said to be the most eye-catching one who not only defeated world champions such as Selby and Bingham in a row to make him bow down, but also won an unbeaten eight-game victory in the group duel to get a place in the winner group.
It can be seen that winning the British Championship not only broke his first crown for Zhao Xintong, but also allowed him to completely establish his confidence in the competition, believing that this new generation of Chinese young players is destined to bring more surprises to everyone in the next career.