Selecting the SnookerHQ Player of the Year is rarely straightforward, but 2025 has been especially difficult to call.
Major titles have been shared among a wide group of elite players, with moments of brilliance spread across the calendar and a single competitor rarely enjoying complete dominance.
From historic achievements on the sport’s biggest stage to sustained consistency in the game’s most prestigious events, several candidates have built compelling cases.
With that in mind, here’s a closer look at the standout contenders for the 2025 SnookerHQ Player of the Year award.
Zhao Xintong
It’s impossible to ignore the astonishing achievement of Zhao Xintong at this year’s World Snooker Championship.
Invited as a top-up amateur following his impressive results on the Q Tour, Zhao fought his way through from the opening round of the preliminary competition in memorable fashion.
The 28 year-old recorded victories over Jak Jones, Lei Peifan, and Chris Wakelin to then reach the semi-finals at the Crucible Theatre.
Ronnie O’Sullivan was duly swept aside in the last four, with Zhao subsequently becoming China’s first (male) world snooker champion with an 18-12 triumph over Mark Williams in the final.
Apart from his success at the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship, things have gone a little quiet for Zhao in the months since, but that month-long performance in Sheffield will never be forgotten.
And even though Zhao hails from a chequered recent past, his triumph was a groundbreaking moment for the sport overall.
Elsewhere online: The first major snooker tournament in 2026 will be the Masters from January 11th to 18th with Zhao rated the second favourite at 5/1 in the outright market with Gangstasino sportsbook behind Judd Trump.
Mark Selby
Mark Selby began 2025 with an early defeat at the Masters and also suffered a first-round loss at the Crucible.
But aside from those disappointing displays, the Leicester man has arguably been the most consistent player of the calendar year from start to finish.
In February, Selby picked up back-to-back titles at the Championship League and the Welsh Open, and he then repeated that feat towards the end of the year with a pair of even bigger triumphs.
The 42 year-old, who was also a finalist at the Tour Champs, got his hands on the Champion of Champions trophy for the first time and followed it up with a brilliant victory at the UK Championship.
That win extended his career tally of Triple Crown titles to ten, becoming only the fourth player to reach double digits for the prestigious series.
Past players of the year on SnookerHQ
| Year | Player |
|---|---|
| 2016 | Mark Selby |
| 2017 | Ronnie O’Sullivan |
| 2018 | Ronnie O’Sullivan |
| 2019 | Judd Trump |
| 2020 | Judd Trump |
| 2021 | John Higgins |
| 2022 | Ronnie O’Sullivan |
| 2023 | Judd Trump |
| 2024 | Judd Trump |
Kyren Wilson
Following his success at the Shanghai Masters in early-August, many would have had Kyren Wilson as an obvious pick for the snooker player of the year.
That represented his third victory in just over seven months, adding to prior glories in the second half of last season at the German Masters and the Players Championship.
Wilson, who began 2025 with a run to the final of the Masters, had seemingly established himself as a serial winner on the tour, but the Warrior has struggled badly for form since then.
Understandably distracted by health concerns related to his wife, the world number two boasts only a couple of quarter-final appearances in ranking events so far this season.
Who else?
Although they probably didn’t quite do enough to emerge on top, Shaun Murphy, John Higgins, and Neil Robertson deserve at least a mention when it comes to this debate.
Murphy produced arguably the performance of his career in dismantling the field at the Masters in January, compiling a 147 break en route to his win at the Ally Pally.
The Magician later won the British Open and looked on course for consecutive ranking crowns only to fall short in the final of the Xi’an Grand Prix.
Higgins returned to the champion’s circle at a ranking event for the first time in four years with his success at the World Open.
The Wizard of Wishaw quickly added a 33rd career ranking title to his collection with a terrific Tour Championship triumph, and he also reached the International Championship final in November.
For Robertson, the Australian prevailed in a couple of the most lucrative ranking events on the calendar this year.
A bruising 10-0 victory over Stuart Bingham took him to glory at the revamped World Grand Prix in Hong Kong.
It was much more dramatic at the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters where Robertson edged Ronnie O’Sullivan 10-9 to claim the £500,000 top prize.
Even with emerging hotshots trying to break into the higher echelons, Murphy, Higgins, and Robertson again showcased their credentials as being among the game’s best players and they each ended 2025 ranked inside the top eight of the world rankings.
Verdict: 2025 snooker player of the year
This year, and especially the first half of the ongoing 2025/26 season, has been a somewhat strange one in that a lot of the titles have been evenly spread out across an array of different champions – even more so than most years.
Strong cases could be made for any one of the players mentioned above, and even Mark Williams who became the oldest ranking event winner at 50 with his victory in Xi’an.
But it’s another Mark who tallied the most titles overall and concluded 2025 with a brace of stellar displays that evoked memories of his prime.
A four-time champion this year overall, Selby’s victories at the Champion of Champions and the UK Championship – beating world number one Judd Trump in both finals – well and truly sealed the deal.
The SnookerHQ Player of the Year for 2025 is Mark Selby.
Featured photo credit: WST
Winning both the Champion of Champions and the UK Championship in recent weeks, defeating the world number one in both finals, must make Selby the overall winner for the year as a whole. Agreed. Even his uncharacteristically unimpressive performance at the Crucible can’t take away from his year of achievements for me.
Since roughly May, Mark Selby has been the best player in the world (according to my stats model), which has only been confirmed by his tournament wins towards the end of the year. He certainly deserves recognition for that.
However, in 10 or 20 years from now, nobody will remember any of that. The only things of historical significance were the twin 147’s by Jackson Page and Ronnie O’Sullivan, but most importantly the breakthrough World Championship win by Zhao Xintong. It’s something we’d been waiting for for some time, and will probably been seen as a watershed moment in snooker. The year 2025 will be remembered for that alone.
As always David, thanks for your dedicated hard work in 2025.
Many will remember Selby’s triumphs this year, particularly winning a third UK Championship. I agree the other moments standout more but many seasoned fans of the game recall far more than just the rarer feats.
Selby was definitely my choice. His flourish to end 2025 made it a far easier choice than it would’ve been at the start of November.
Zhao would’ve been second based on the remarkable nature of his triumph. To win so soon after his ban was incredible and it represented the start of inevitably many more winners from China. The only caveat to his victory was his overall standard during the Crucible phase was a tad underwhelming. His last three opponents offered very little resistance and his century count was low, excluding the qualifiers.