The 2022 Snooker World Championship is in full swing, as a young player Zhao Xintong, although the results of this World Championship trip are not perfect, but the performance is still remarkable. As the No. 7 seed of the tournament, Zhao Xintong lost to Stephen Maguire 9-13 by a large score and missed the quarterfinals. For a first-time appearance in Crucible as a seeded player, Zhao Xintong's harvest is still full.
In the round of 32 of the Snooker World Championship, there are 13 England players, 6 Wales players and 4 Scotland players, a total of 23 local players. In addition, there are 4 Chinese players, 2 Thai players, and 1 each from Iran, Australia and Belgium. China's four players are Ding Junhui, Lu Haotian, Yan Bingtao and Zhao Xintong. Among them, Yan Bingtao and Zhao Xintong are seed players.
Born in 1997, Zhao Xintong first came into contact with snooker at the age of 8 and practiced with Wu Wenzhong in 2009. Zhao Xintong has a lot of talent in snooker, and his performance is also very good, in recent years, all the snooker celebrities have praised Zhao Xintong. Mark Williams once said that he performed on the same stage with 8/9-year-old Zhao Xintong, who could easily shoot two shots in the face of television broadcasts.
Zhao Xintong's talent in snooker was demonstrated in an interview he later won the British Championship. He said: "I was very young, and I started to touch billiards when I was seven or eight years old. The first time was when my dad and his friend took me to fight, and I fell in love with it. Later, some seniors who knew billiards found out that I had talent, and my parents took me all over the country to find coaches and teachers, and my parents have been very supportive of me, and I am very grateful to them. At first there was no clear goal, and at the time it felt like a lot of things were very far away, just enjoying the training. ”
Thanks to having a good talent coupled with the efforts of the day after tomorrow. Zhao Xintong won more attention by beating Ken Dahdi 6-5 in the wild card tournament of the 2012 International Championships, and then defeating six-time World Champion Steve Davis at the National Championships the following year. However, before the 2021 British Championships, Zhao Xintong, who became famous at a young age, did not win the ranking championship.
Zhao Xintong's career has not been smooth, he fell out of the tour at the end of the 2017/18 season, but then quickly regained his professional qualification through that year's Q School. After returning to his career, Zhao Xintong reached the semi-finals of the ranking tournament for the first time at the 2018 China Championships. But Zhao Xintong did not win the first title of his career until he was 24 years old. And it is also in the 2021 Snooker British Championship that the world remembers Zhao Xintong.
After the end of the 2021 Snooker Championship, the British Championship followed, and for snooker lovers, it was a wonderful snooker feast. After Trump won the championship in the championship, his call to continue to win the Championship in the British Championship also rose, followed by Robertson, O'Sullivan and Selby, while the Chinese players, Yan Bingtao and Ding Junhui were all likely to win the championship, but the probability of winning the championship was very low, and Zhao Xintong was no one at the time.
However, in the final 16 of the British Championships, the Chinese legion was left with only young general Zhao Xintong. In the quarter-finals, Zhao Xintong defeated 51-year-old England veteran Peter Lanes 6-4 to successfully advance to the quarterfinals. In the quarterfinals, Zhao Xintong defeated Jack Lisowski 6-2 with a big score to reach the semi-finals of the ranking tournament for the second time in his career. In the semi-finals, Zhao Xintong beat Barry Hawkins 6-1 and reached the final of the ranking tournament for the first time in his career.
Who would have thought that Zhao Xintong could advance to the final of the British Championship, and it is estimated that zhao Xintong himself may not have thought of it before participating in the competition. The other player who reached the final at the time, Brechel, was also young, a post-95. First time to reach the final of the British Championship - As a Belgian player, he is the first European player from outside the United Kingdom to reach the final of the British Championship, and the first player from the European continent to reach the final of the three major competitions.
Before reaching the final of the British Championship, Zhao Xintong had only reached the semi-finals once at the 2018 China Championships. So whoever wins the title will be the fourth non-British player to lift the trophy after Patchy Fagan, Ding Junhui and Neil Robertson, and if Brechel wins, he will be the lowest-ranked champion in the world since Ding Junhui in 2005.
Of course, for Zhao Xintong, if he can win the championship, he will become the fourth Chinese mainland player to win the ranking championship after Ding Junhui, Liang Wenbo and Yan Bingtao. In the end, Zhao Xintong won the British Championship for the first time with a 100-100 and 6-50+ performance , which was his first three-time championship and his first ranking title.
The British Championship champion made Zhao Xintong famous and let the outside world "remember" this Chinese youngster. With that victory, Zhao Xintong's world ranking will jump from 26th before the tournament to 10th, and he qualified for the 2022 Snooker Masters, in addition to this year's crown qualification.
Let's take a look at how the Snooker official website evaluated Zhao Xintong at that time, and the article on the world snooker official website commented on the final: Zhao Xintong's winning method highlighted his potential: his single-shot scoring ability, superb walking level, pure batting ability and calm temperament are all characteristics of a great champion. Whether he will be able to become a winning general during the sport's toughest times remains to be seen, but his success has given the left-hander a feeling of a major breakthrough. ”
For the first time, Zhao Xintong was also full of emotion, he wrote: "After turning into a profession in 2016, my goal has never changed, that is, to win the ranking championship. Along the way, I had high hopes, but I also fell in front of opportunities many times. This time, I stood firm and finally lifted the championship trophy. This championship is condensed too much, thanks to the cultivation of the China Taiwan Association, thanks to the mentor who guided me along the way, but also thanks to the friends and fans who have always supported me, you are my strong backing. At the age of 24, I still have a long way to go in my career, and I hope that this championship is my starting star and guides me to continue to bravely move forward. ”
With Zhao Xintong's victory in the Championship, his next performance is also highly anticipated by the outside world. In this year's Snooker German Masters, Zhao Xintong advanced all the way to the final, and in the final, he played against Yan Bingtao, who also played well, and a Chinese derby battle attracted much attention from the outside world. In the end, Zhao Xintong won the championship with a 9-0 victory over Yan Bingtao, and won the second crown of his career after 56 days.
From practicing snooker at the age of seven or eight, to growing into a British Championship champion and then a Masters champion. Zhao Xintong frankly said that it is inseparable from the exemplary role of Ding Junhui and other predecessors, but also thanks to the snooker youth training program of the Chinese Billiards Association. Looking forward to his future career, Zhao Xintong said that he would adhere to the offensive style of play, make up for shortcomings such as defense, strive to get more championships, and encourage more Chinese children to participate in the snooker movement.
In recent years, new stars in the field of snooker in China have emerged. In 2019, "post-00s" Yan Bingtao won the ranking championship for the first time at the Snow Krega Masters. In 2021, he won his first career triple title at the Snooker Masters. In December 2021, 24-year-old Zhao Xintong won the British Championship, and then met Yan Bingtao in the final of the German Masters, and in less than two months, won his second ranking title. Fan Zhengyi, a 21-year-old Chinese teenager at the 2022 Snooker European Masters, defeated O'Sullivan 10-9 to win the ranking championship for the first time in his career. They became the leaders in the field of Chinese snooker in the "post-Ding Junhui era".
With the rise of the new generation of players such as Fan Zhengyi, Yan Bingtao and Zhao Xintong, China's snooker has also ushered in an era of a hundred flowers. O'Sullivan once said: "For Yan Bingtao, Zhao Xintong, Fan Zhengyi and other Chinese young players to win the championship, they inspire each other and make progress, which is a good thing for the development of the snooker movement in China and the world." "Looking forward to China's snooker development getting better and better, but also look forward to more and more "Zhao Xintong, Fan Zhengyi, Yan Bingtao" players to emerge on the international stage!