Mark Williams reached the 2025 Xi’an Grand Prix final on Sunday with a hard-fought 6-3 defeat of countryman Daniel Wells.
The victory takes the legendary Welshman through to a 44th career ranking event final as he continues his bid to land a 27th crown at this level.
Williams was far from his best, and he has indeed struggled to reproduce his top form for much of the week in Xi’an, but he still managed to get the job done.
If he could go all the way to glory in Monday’s final, Williams would become the oldest-ever ranking event champion on the World Snooker Tour.
You’d have to go all the way back to 1982 for the last time a player in his fifties managed to get his hands on ranking silverware.
That was Ray Reardon, who was aged 50 years and 14 days when he prevailed at that year’s Professional Players Tournament with victory over a rising young star by the name of Jimmy White.
Williams will be aged 50 years and 206 days when he competes in Monday’s title-deciding showdown against either Shaun Murphy or Gary Wilson.
“I scraped over the line again today,” Mark Williams, who last contested a ranking final at the World Snooker Championship in May, told the World Snooker Tour.
“I’m glad to win, but apart from the one century break I had, it was really tough out there. I might look calm at some parts of it.”
“But I can tell you at some parts, you don’t want to know what was going through my head – the words I was calling myself.
“I just struggled the whole match. I don’t know how I’m in the final because I’ve had no form at all to get to the final, let’s be honest.
“I played one good match against Barry [Hawkins] and the rest has just been pretty poor, but I stick in there.
“I scraped a few results out. Can I do it once more? Probably not. I’ve got to play a lot better than that in the final against Murphy or Wilson.
“Otherwise they are just going to trample all over me. But I’m in the final, I’ll try my best, and who knows? Maybe I can pot a few.
“Being the oldest in something, it’s not really a record, is it? If I did manage to win it, probably Ronnie would beat it or something.
“Or John Higgins will beat it in a few months time anyway. So no, it’s just nice to be in a final, and if I can win a tournament, that’d be great.
“I’ve got to be honest, if you’d given me the quarters before coming out, I would have bit your hand off. If you’d given me the final, I’d have bit your whole body off.”
The second semi-final between Murphy and Wilson also takes place on Sunday, with the former on course to triumph in back-to-back ranking events following his recent win at the British Open.
Wilson, meanwhile, is bidding to avenge his painful loss in the final of the last ranking event on Chinese soil when he was denied a fourth ranking title at the Wuhan Open.
2025 Xi’an Grand Prix
Round of 32 (bo9)
Kyren Wilson 5-2 Yuan Sijun
Shaun Murphy 5-4 Wu Yize
Elliot Slessor 4-5 Oliver Lines
Louis Heathcote 3-5 Ding Junhui
Ronnie O’Sullivan 5-0 Stephen Maguire
David Lilley 3-5 Jak Jones
Gary Wilson 5-4 Mateusz Baranowski
He Guoqiang 5-4 Neil Robertson
Matthew Stevens 4-5 Lyu Haotian
Stan Moody 0-5 Stuart Bingham
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 2-5 Barry Hawkins
Zhou Yuelong 2-5 Mark Williams
Liam Pullen 5-0 Noppon Saengkham
Mark Davis 1-5 Aaron Hill
Daniel Wells 5-3 Si Jiahui
Jimmy Robertson 4-5 Robert Milkins
Round of 16 (bo9)
Kyren Wilson 0-5 Shaun Murphy
Oliver Lines 1-5 Ding Junhui
Ronnie O’Sullivan 5-2 Jak Jones
Gary Wilson 5-0 He Guoqiang
Lyu Haotian 5-3 Stuart Bingham
Barry Hawkins 4-5 Mark Williams
Liam Pullen 5-1 Aaron Hill
Daniel Wells 5-2 Robert Milkins
Quarter-Finals (bo9)
Shaun Murphy 5-3 Ding Junhui
Ronnie O’Sullivan 2-5 Gary Wilson
Lyu Haotian 4-5 Mark Williams
Liam Pullen 2-5 Daniel Wells
Semi-Final (bo11)
Shaun Murphy vs Gary Wilson
Mark Williams 6-3 Daniel Wells
Final (bo19)
Murphy/Wilson vs Mark Williams
Click here for the updated draw and results (snooker.org)
Featured photo credit: WST
