Zhao Xintong becomes Asia’s first world snooker champion after match-fixing ban

Zhao Xintong of China became Asia s first world snooker champion after beating Mark Williams - in the final on Monday completing a remarkable career turnaround following his involvement in the sport s biggest match-fixing disgrace Zhao captured the sport s biggest prize as well as a winner s check of pounds at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield just months after returning to competitive action following a -month ban The fixing shame in involved Chinese players in total and left snooker under a cloud especially in China the sport s biggest sector in the television landscape and a country that makes up more than of snooker s global audience Zhao is now the pride of China winning the world championship while playing as an amateur he ll return to the professional ranks next season and having come through four rounds of qualifiers just to get to the main draw at the Crucible The -year-old Williams was bidding to become the oldest ever world champion as well as a four-time winner but never recovered from trailing - after the first of the final s four sessions across Sunday and Monday Zhao a fearless attacking left-hander manifested minimal nerves in a match which World Snooker Tour functionaries estimated was being watched by a possible audience of - million live streams in China and a cumulative audience of - million on China s CCTV Even after Williams won the first four frames of the last session to go from - to - Zhao stayed composed to compile a break of in what proved to be the last frame after which he unfurled the flag of China and hung it over his shoulders to the backdrop of applause Zhao s turbu lent career When Zhao won the prestigious U K Championship one of snooker s majors in he looked ready to join the elite of the encounter Even as a teenager he was marked out by a few top players including Williams as a feasible future star However his career was brought to a shuddering halt when as part of a sprawling match-fixing shame that rocked snooker in he was banned after accepting charges of being a party to another contestant fixing two matches and betting on matches himself Zhao was ranked No in the world at the time Zhao has been free to play since his suspension expired in September and in January secured a return to snooker s main professional tour for next season Given his talent he was seen as a dangerous wild card in world championship qualifying and he breezed through that and then the main tournament itself even thrashing seven-time champion Ronnie O Sullivan - in the semifinals Now he has beaten another veteran and member of snooker s so-called Class of in Williams who himself had looked good in beating four-time champion John Higgins in the quarterfinals and then top-ranked Judd Trump in the semifinals Chinese takeover It was only a matter of time before a Chinese participant won the worlds Only one Ding Junhui had previously reached the final at the Crucible and he lost to Mark Selby - in Ding emerged as a snooker star about years ago when the sport first tried to spread to China and is the trailblazer for a raft of his countrymen to have burst through making snooker huge in their homeland According to the World Snooker Tour there are around snooker clubs in China Snooker is available to watch in every TV household in China on CCTV There are three snooker academies for Chinese players in Britain one of them being in Sheffield where Zhao is based A record Chinese players reached the first round proper of the worlds this year and six of them made it through to the last Overseas winners The sport has traditionally been dominated by British players but there have now been two overseas winners of the world championship in the past three years after Belgium s Luca Brecel captured the title in The only other non-British winner this century was Neil Robertson of Australia in AP sports https apnews com sports Source