World Snooker Championship 2025: History beckons for Mark Williams or Zhao Xintong in era-defining Crucible final as China expects – 'Totally unique'

Mark Williams and Zhao Xintong meet in the 49th World Championship final on Sunday and Monday with both men chasing their own unique slice of history beyond the £500,000 winner's cheque. Three-time winner Williams aims to become the oldest world champion, while former UK holder Zhao could be crowned China's first Crucible king in snooker's ultimate event, live on TNT Sports and discovery+.

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Zhao Xintong was born on Thursday, April 3, 1997, a fortnight before a 22-year-old Mark Williams made his World Championship debut at the Crucible Theatre.

In what proved to be a momentous occasion in the evergreen history of the blue-chip competition, Williams defeated 1979 world champion Terry Griffiths 10-9 in the first round in his fellow Welsh icon's final match before retirement.

It would be fair to say we have a similar generation game to savour when the 49th Crucible final takes place between two men chasing their own slice of sporting history over a possible 35 frames on Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday, live on TNT Sports and discovery+.

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For hardy fans of the old green baize, this should be like money in the bank as two classy, distinctive, but elegant potting machines, split by 22 years - a record age gap for any Crucible final - do battle for the greatest prize in snooker.

It is perhaps fitting that 40 years after the 1985 'Black Ball' final between Steve Davis and Dennis Taylor – the most famous denouement of them all when 18.5m piped themselves into their TVs beyond midnight to see Taylor prevail 18-17 after trailing 8-0 - there comes another staging post in the cultural development of the sport beyond Blighty.

How times have changed in terms of the cue ball's continental drift, with a new generation of fans in China and beyond supporting Zhao's quest for immortality.

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When Ding Junhui lost the 2016 world final 18-14 to Mark Selby, an estimated audience of 210m in China watched their national potting pioneer come up just short.

A fair few more than the 980 or so pilgrims inside the Crucible will be back to roar on Zhao this time with the significance of the moment hardly lost in translation.

Zhao is a product of the sport's mass popularity in his home country and is bidding to become China's, and by extension, Asia's totemic maiden world champion at the age of 28.

While three-time winner Williams, perhaps the faintest of outsiders in the two-horse race to 18 frames, has an opportunity to become the oldest man to lift the fabled old trophy a few weeks after turning 50.

He is already the oldest player to reach the final, surpassing his friend and mentor Ray Reardon, who was aged 49 when he lost 18-15 to Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins in the 1982 final.

Yet he could also usurp the six-time champion Reardon as the oldest winner of a ranking title in the modern era of professionalism.

Williams trips up step after win over Trump, carries on interview

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For his part, Zhao could also emulate Griffiths, Alex Higgins (1972) and Shaun Murphy (2005) as the only qualifiers to carry off the trophy which Joe Davis, the 15-time winner between 1927 and 1946, purchased for 19 quid back in 1926.

While Griffiths opted to retire at the age of 49 after his loss to Williams to focus on coaching, Williams looks like he is just getting started as he brings up the half-century with as much grace as peak David Gower.

Despite battling issues with his eyesight, Williams has kept his peepers firmly on the prize with his rousing 17-14 win over world No. 1 Judd Trump, founded on a mixture of superior long potting, heavy scoring and timely tactics.

He produced four majestic centuries and 10 breaks over 50 in recovering from 7-3 behind to avenge his 17-16 defeat to Trump in the 2022 semi-finals.

This came after unearthing wins over Wu Yize (10-8), Hossen Vafaei (13-10) and John Higgins (13-12) with his old foe missing a blue to complete victory over the 26-time ranking event winner, who composed himself to slot a clinical blue, pink and black in snooker's version of Fergie time.

Williams in full flow is a formidable force for anyone to confront, but Zhao may just have the antidote to negate the Welshman's considerable stinging rash of attacks with his own heavy lashings of break-building.

After coming through four qualifying rounds, the former UK and German Masters champion has prospered on the grandest stage over the past two weeks with wins over last year's finalist Jak Jones (10-4), Lei Peifan (13-10), Chris Wakelin (13-5) and seven-time champion Ronnie O'Sullivan (17-7), justifying his status as an amateur in name only.

Indeed, Zhao was ranked world No. 6 before he was banned for 20 months after his involvement in a match-fixing probe in 2023, but was invited to chase the £500,000 first prize after booking his return to the main circuit as an amateur via a first-placed finish on the Q Tour Europe ranking list.

He is making up for lost time and has wasted little in making his intentions clear.

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"This tournament feels totally unique. For Chinese and Asian players, no one has won it yet," said Zhao. "Every match won here is incredibly difficult.

"Even though I’ve made it to the final, there’s still a long way to go.

"I don’t think there’s any other sport where someone can still achieve so much at the age of 50.

"I have huge respect for Ronnie and Mark; what they’re doing is incredible."

Dubbed 'The Cyclone', his serene movement around the table is more akin to a gentle waft of expectation in a sport that remains a ferocious assault on the senses.

Despite O'Sullivan looking like he was playing his first match in three years, never mind three months, in a bizarre Friday morning session which he lost 8-0, Zhao was alert enough to quickly sedate a wounded opponent, whose inner doubt was exposed by ongoing technical concerns with cue and cue arm.

Zhao is unlikely to find it so easy against Williams, who is operating at a level of form that is arguably as sharp as anything he has produced since turning professional alongside O'Sullivan and Higgins as 'The Class of 92', the same year his friend, the powerhouse singer Tom Jones, released A Boy From Nowhere.

Williams could be found listening to a song which contains the lyrics: "I have to win, I won't give in. No one who knows me would expect me to fail," before toppling Higgins.

That might be apt for the mood music of Williams in Sheffield, who enjoys the innate ability to quickly move on from a game apparently mired in a constant state of delight and despair.

Williams first won the title with an 18-16 win over Matthew Stevens in 2000, before defeating Ken Doherty 18-16 in 2003 and John Higgins 18-16 in 2018. He would happily take another 18-16 this time.

Like Stevens, he comes from a great tradition of Welsh snooker players.

His run to the final is a timely with the sport in Wales still grieving the deaths of the iconic world champions Griffiths and Reardon last year and 1981 Crucible runner-up Doug Mountjoy in 2021.

It is also astonishing to consider that Williams met Zhao, who he leads 4-2 in competitive career meetings, in a qualifier for the 2017 World Championship after briefly dropping out of the elite top 16.

He completed a 10-7 win before losing to Stuart Carrington by the same scoreline as he failed to make the last 32 for only the second time since 1996.

This came a year before he lifted the title for a third time at the Crucible, but a fourth in his sixth decade would be akin to Phil Mickelson's landmark major golf win at the US PGA Championship around Kiawah Island in 2021.

If he manages to defeat Zhao this time out, he will bookend a remarkable quartet of victories a quarter of a century after his first, and join John Higgins and Mark Selby on four titles.

"I am looking forward to playing Zhao. I played him in an exhibition in China when he was 12," Williams told reporters.

"It was 1-1 and then he knocked in 130 and 138 to beat me 3-1.

"Here we are 16 years later, and I am playing him in the world final. I am just happy to be there.

"If I win and get to four world titles, what an achievement."

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His coach, Lee Walker, reached the quarter-finals in the same year Williams made his Crucible debut.

"When he won the worlds in 2018, I was driving his car back and this number kept ringing, and he wouldn't answer it," said Walker on the BBC.

"I said, 'Look you're going to have to answer. It might be a reporter wanting an interview or something like that'.

"So he answered it and went, 'Hello' and the voice on the other end went, 'Mark, it's Tom [Jones], well done'."

The world final was tipped to be a battle between world No. 1 Trump and the snooker GOAT O'Sullivan, but Williams against Zhao is hardly a case of after the Lord Mayor's show.

Williams will start next season at world No. 3 with Zhao secure inside the top 32 whatever happens in the next two days, the days of their lives.

"It would be amazing for snooker and for him [Zhao] if he becomes world champion," said O'Sullivan.

"He will have more of a test against Mark or Judd. That will be a proper test."

Everybody loves a comeback story in any walk of life.

Some more than others, it will be suggested, but there will be as much support in the hillsides and in the Vales for Willo as Tom Jones belting out Delilah or Sir Gareth Edwards, Gareth Bale or Joe Calzaghe in their sporting pomp.

Williams and Zhao come from different galaxies of the ancient game, but the last man standing this year will inherit the earth.