Mark Williams and Zhao Xintong will contest the 2025 World Snooker Championship final at the Crucible Theatre on Sunday and Monday.
After almost a month of action in Sheffield, it all comes down to one four-session match played over 35 frames to determine this year’s world snooker champion.
Not many would have predicted this showdown for glory, but an amazing story will be generated regardless of who manages to emerge with the silverware.
Williams reached his fifth World Snooker Championship final with a tremendous 17-14 semi-final triumph over Judd Trump on Saturday.
The Welshman trailed 7-3 but dominated the contest thereafter, mixing terrific tactical play with powerful scoring to usurp the world number one.
Aged 50, Williams will become the oldest ever Crucible finalist – eclipsing countryman Ray Reardon who lost to Alex Higgins as a 49 year-old in the 1982 title-deciding affair.
He began this edition of the World Championship playing down his chances amid fears that his deteriorating eyesight was signalling the beginning of the end to his wonderful career.
A fortnight later, Williams has won four close matches on the spin and is one more victory away from adding to his World Championship titles from 2000, 2003, and 2018.
Many regard the latter success as not only his finest but also one of the greatest wins of the modern era, but that would surely be eclipsed if he were to go all the way again this year.
Williams is one member of the famous Class of ’92 triumvirate alongside Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins.
While chasing down the Rocket’s tally of seven titles in Sheffield will remain an unreachable target, a fourth world crown would taken him on a par with Higgins – who he beat in a dramatic quarter-final affair last week on the final black.
The sixth seed enters the 2025 World Snooker Championship final as the slight underdog with the online bookies, however.
His opponent boasts odds of 8/11 to become the first qualifier since Shaun Murphy in 2005 to win a world title, with Stake Hunters providing plenty of useful snooker tips and odds comparisons to avail of.
Zhao is a returning star who is set to become one of the global faces of the sport in victory or defeat.
Of course, if Zhao Xintong can manage to etch his name onto the trophy, he will become an iconic first player from China to win a World Snooker Championship.
But success for the 28 year-old would not come without its controversy, with many pointing to his recent ban and the speed at which he has been permitted to return as reasons to temper the plaudits.
Zhao was a guilty member of the betting ring that resulted in the bans of ten Chinese snooker players in 2023.
Although he was deemed not to have fixed matches, he was given a 20-month suspension for being a party to others fixing matches and for betting on games.
Returning in September and playing under amateur status, he has since lit up the feeder Q Tour and reproduced some of his best in Sheffield, where he has reached the final in incredible fashion having started his 2025 World Snooker Championship journey in the very first round of qualifying.
There are a lot of people, though, who will continue to place a question mark over his name, with some high-profile members of the media pushing an agenda to see his potential achievement tarnished.
Doubts will continue to linger, but what has been abundantly clear is the incredible talent that Zhao has at his disposal.
He already proved this with his breakthrough victory at the 2021 UK Championship, yet success in Sheffield would represent an entirely new level altogether.
With concerns over the rise in popularity of Heyball (Chinese eight-ball), a long overdue Chinese world champion would provide a timely boost for snooker in a country that holds immense importance to the sport.
As a result of all of these factors, there will be an enormous amount of pressure on Zhao’s shoulders, and how he manages to deal with this could go a long way to determining the outcome of the final.
Zhao produced swashbuckling snooker to thump Ronnie O’Sullivan 17-7 with a session to spare, but his semi-final opponent – beset with confidence issues involving his cue – barely offered anything in the way of a serious challenge.
That is unlikely to materialise in the case of Williams, who has experienced this occasion so many times before and whose temperament is known to be one of the very best around.
Williams, chasing a 27th ranking crown, and Zhao have clashed six times in all competitions with the former enjoying a superior 4-2 head-to-head advantage.
The last of those meetings transpired at the 2022 German Masters in Berlin when Zhao prevailed en route to securing a second ranking title.
The ensuing ban brought an abrupt halt to his rapid ascent up the rankings at the time, but the £500,000 champion’s cheque here would guarantee his immediate return to the top 16.
Regardless of the outcome, Williams will end this season as the world’s number three – a remarkable achievement at this stage of his career.
A battle of generations, on one side there will be those hoping for what would probably be a romantic last hurrah for warhorse Williams at the game’s most prestigious setting.
In the opposing camp, there will be those desperate to see a fresh face in Zhao inject some life into a sport that already relies too heavily on its older protagonists.
Either way, the 2025 World Snooker Championship final is likely to churn out a compelling climax to what has been a terrific tournament overall.
For the full 2025 World Snooker Championship draw, results, and schedule, click here.
Featured photos credit: WST
Williams triumphed in a throughly absorbing semi-final. His tactical play and pressure potting was a decisive factor in taking advantage of Trump not being able to produce any spells of sustained quality as he’d done in the previous three rounds.
The Welshman is appearing in a 12th Triple Crown final and a 43rd ranking final. Zhao in a third ranking final.
I’d be interested to see who these journalists are that want to denigrate Zhao’s progression and return to the limelight. His ban was perhaps a fraction lenient but that’s not his fault. He’s served his time and knuckled down ever since so he can reassert himself as a world class player.
Williams establishes a new Crucible record for the longest span between his first and most recent world final. 26 years have passed since his maiden world final. The previous longest span was 21 years, set by both Ronnie O’Sullivan (2001-2022) and John Higgins (1998-2019).
Yes, journalists may find they have to tread very carefully on this. As always, they have to consider their target audience, but if every time Zhao Xintong wins a tournament, they bring up the 20-month ban, the narrative will look a bit stuck. However, on social media, there will be no escape, for various reasons.
Incredible final line up, hopefully the match comes at least close to living up to the headline!
With the four semifinalists this year some kind of blockbuster final was inevitable!
This year’s world championship has been one of the best I can remember and has washed away last year’s dud.
Thoroughly good show all round actually, except for a couple of occasions where players hit the side of the stage when trying to play a shot: the crucible theatre needs to measure up it’s set design a tad more!
Day 10 of the Crucible saw the record for centuries in a single snooker tournament surpassed. Si Jiahui made the 226th century against Woollaston. This saw the previous mark of 225, from the 2023 World Championship, broken with seven days remaining. We now sit on 247.
Are Monday holidays a thing in China? I’ve always thought the Monday finish is illogical for international audiences.
I’m happy as a Brit to admit a weekend final and starting on a Friday night would be preferable to reflect the global stature of this event. I think some point in the 1990s a Bank Holiday Monday became the regular finish date.
By a freakish coincidence, Monday is actually a holiday in China (“Labour Day”) this year. I don’t know this would happen every year, and in China a 1-day holiday isn’t conventionally shifted to a Monday, as it is in the UK. Perhaps David can advise about Republic of Ireland?
But for other countries, it is a normal day, which looks to completely undermine WST’s stated ‘global’ objective. It just sends a message that snooker is run by the British, for the British. They didn’t need May-day in 2020, and I remember World Championships in the 1980’s which began on a Friday night.
It’s a bank holiday in Republic of Ireland.
Yes, and when I was younger I thought nothing of it. But since moving abroad, I’ve come to appreciate the idiocy of continuing with the traditional schedule. In fact, I think more tournaments should end on Saturdays or at least on Sunday afternoons to better attract a younger global audience, but that’s another story.
Yes it is a holiday in China. My son lives in Beijing with his Chinese wife, a Lawyer. He’s an English teacher. They had both been off work since Wednesday and returned today.
I’m not in favour of Saturdays so much as you need to maximise a weekend
Sunday afternoon would be okay for certain events but there needs to be a balance in preferring certain timezones. You can never get it totally right. The one thing that is universal is that weekends are a time where people generally have more time to watch sport.