06-05-2025
China is ready to take over snooker thanks to a talent factory in Sheffield
You would miss it were it not for the small sign on the outside which simply reads 'Victoria Snooker'. The 'V' is rather artistically made up of snooker cues and we are in a Sheffield street just a 10-minute walk from snooker's Crucible home, which is otherwise used as office space by local businesses. Yet this is where the new world champion Zhao Xintong has based himself for most of the past decade and, alongside the nearby Ding Snooker Academy, is home to much of the best Chinese snooker talent.
Zhao started playing aged eight on tables outside some shops in Shenzhen before persuading his parents – a nurse and a doctor – to buy a small table in their home where it would be 'half practice, half study'. He played at an academy in Beijing – one of 300,000 snooker clubs in China – but Sheffield does ultimately remain the finishing school for most of those Asian players trying to take their place on the main snooker tour.
Victoria Shi, after whom the Victoria club is named, is also Zhao's manager and mentor. Shi was the first person to join Zhao on the Crucible floor when he clinched his 18-12 victory over Mark Williams on Monday and immediately handed him a People's Republic of China flag.
Backstage at the Crucible later on Monday, Shi was in no doubt that this is just the start of an even bigger story. Asked whether she had seen potentially better young Chinese players than Zhao, and how many more Chinese world champions there would be over the next decade, she twice simply replied: 'Too many.'
Just as in sports like table tennis, diving, shooting and badminton, where China won 20 Olympic golds last summer, she emphasised the country's capacity to relentlessly hone a technical skill. The sleek but minimalist inside of the Victoria Snooker Academy is certainly a far cry from the boozy smoke-filled snooker halls that were once the breeding ground of the best British players.
'In China they all play at seven years old – they practise 10 hours a day,' Shi says. 'Chinese people work hard. Snooker is already so popular in China, but now, you can't imagine how big it will be. He is a sports icon, the first Asian world champion. That's huge.'
Si Jiahui, who reached the world semi-final two years ago and was beaten by Ronnie O'Sullivan in this year's quarter-final, and Zhang Anda, who is ranked 12th in the world, also play at the Victoria Snooker Academy. Yan Bingtao, who won the Masters in 2021, previously practised there but, with Zhao, was among 10 Chinese players suspended in 2023 as part of snooker's biggest-ever match fixing investigation.
Zhao was not found to have thrown matches himself but admitted to placing bets for Yan through another Chinese player. Yan is still serving his five-year ban while Zhao completed his 20-month suspension only last September, before winning four qualifying matches to reach the Crucible.
Shi, who prides herself on the all-round care and guidance that she gives the Chinese players, says that she was in tears when Zhao and Yan's involvement came to light. 'For two months, it was like I was sleepwalking,' she told the snooker journalist Phil Haigh in April 2023. 'I was angry. I constantly told them how stupid they are. They've been with me since day one, I thought I knew everything about them. I always told them not to mix with the wrong crowd.'
Her advice to Zhao once he returned remained blunt. 'I told him, 'You didn't kill anyone, you didn't lose your arms and legs, you made the biggest mistake of your life, so learn from it and make yourself a stronger person',' she now says.
'If he enjoys it too much, I will tell him off'
And Shi does believe that Zhao has emerged stronger. 'Now my job is to make sure he stays grounded,' she says. 'They come from so far away and they are [often] only children. Snooker is a hard game. You have to be special mentally and you have to give them support, 100 per cent, off the table to make them settled. If they are happy off the table, they are happy on the table.
'If I haven't seen them for a few days, I will ask: 'Why haven't I seen you?' It is like with normal kids. I want them working hard. He [Zhao] practises for six or seven hours a day. He is in Sheffield for eight or nine months of the year because of training hard and the events. Let him enjoy this… but, if he enjoys it too much, I will tell him off.'
Jason Ferguson, who is the chair of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, said that the crowning of a first Chinese world champion was among the most seismic moments in snooker history. The BBC television audience peaked above three million for Monday's final but that was rather dwarfed by in excess of 100 million watching in China.
'I think Xintong has the potential to become the richest earning snooker player in the history of the sport,' Ferguson says. 'The size of the market is huge and, when you see the association of the brands who want to partner with snooker, it has endless potential. He's won the biggest amateur tour in the world. He then entered the qualifiers as an amateur. To then go all the way at the Crucible is nothing short of a miracle.'
Ferguson believes that Zhao's victory will also advance snooker's efforts to be recognised in the Olympics and Paralympics. 'Snooker in China is treated like any national sport,' he says. 'The size of snooker now… [and] how important China is to the International Olympic Committee, someone has to look at this today and say: 'This is now snooker's time.'
'I do think Australia [the Brisbane Games of 2032) is a realistic target. That's the one game-changing opportunity because it will open up every country to say they need to invest.'
