Zhao Xintong joined the lengthy list of top seeds who have already bowed out of the 2026 Northern Ireland Open with defeat in his opening round on Tuesday.
The Cyclone looked on course to record a routine victory when he led Gao Yang 2-0 early on but duly lost the following four frames to suffer an unexpected defeat.
He joins the likes of Judd Trump, Mark Selby, Neil Robertson, Shaun Murphy, and Ronnie O’Sullivan who crashed out of the season’s seventh ranking event at the initial hurdle.
In fact, just three members from the top 16 are still involved in Belfast with top seed and defending champion Jack Lisowski likewise out of the running having lost to Anthony McGill.
It’s fair to say that it has been a strange tournament so far at the Waterfront Hall, but that shouldn’t mask what has been an equally strange couple of months for Zhao.
The 29 year-old realised a career-long ambition in August when, by reaching the final of the Wuhan Open, he became the sport’s 13th world number one.
It was a remarkable achievement considering he had technically only been back on the main tour as a professional player for about 15 months following suspension.
Since winning the 2025 World Championship, Zhao subsequently produced a string of brilliant displays to capture all three Players Series titles at the start of this year.
In April, Shaun Murphy ultimately denied the Chinese star a shot at breaking the Curse of the Crucible, but there was no denying that he was the best player in the world at the time.
Fast forward several months and Zhao is seemingly struggling to build any sort of momentum in what has been an awful start to his tenure at the summit of the rankings.
With effectively no points to defend until the 2027 World Championship comes around, it had been expected that he would significantly extend his buffer to those in the chasing pack.
Yet that hasn’t been the case so far.
After losing to Chang Bingyu in the final in Wuhan, Zhao reached the quarter-finals of the British Open where he was thumped 5-1 by his world no.1 predecessor, Judd Trump.
Since then, Zhao has lost in the first round in each of the English, Shenzhen, and the Northern Ireland Opens – making it four defeats on the spin in ranking events.
He was completely outplayed by Trump in Cheltenham, the latter seemingly motivated to prove a point having been forced to relinquish his long-held title as the sport’s leading protagonist in the rankings race.
Zhao then compiled a brace of century breaks only to lose 4-2 to Oliver Lines at the English Open before suffering a shock 5-4 reverse to Scott Donaldson in Shenzhen.
Against Gao, he raced into a 2-0 lead with breaks of 129 and 64 but was impressively pegged back by some heavy scoring from the lowly ranked qualifier.
Zhao’s scoring pedigree doesn’t seem to have taken much of a hit in recent weeks, but a lack of match play consistency has certainly proven costly.
Wu Yize’s triumph at the recent Shenzhen Open, for which he pocketed a whopping £177,000 top prize, has also brought him into contention for the world number one battle.
Indeed, if the reigning world champion hadn’t skipped this week’s tournament due to medical reasons, he would have had a big opportunity to usurp his countryman into top spot.
But it begs the question, what is going on with Zhao? Is it just a temporary blip or something more?
While he may have ended last season as the undisputed best player in the world, Wu, Trump, and perhaps even Mark Selby could lay claim to that mantle at the moment.
Zhao’s status is justified by what he has accomplished over the last two years, and a handful of disappointing results shouldn’t erase that.
Nevertheless, his recent performances have exposed a vulnerability that wasn’t apparent during his dominant run earlier in the calendar year.
Whether that reflects a temporary loss of rhythm or a more significant dip in form remains to be seen.
The International Championship (Oct 31 – Nov 7) will be the next chance for Zhao to turn his season around, with Ian Burns awaiting in a held-over fixture from qualifying.
Featured photo credit: WST
I watched the match with my wife and she is convinced that his cough has lasted a year now and that he looked to be breaking a sweat and blowing out chunks of air from his mouth plus continuously drink from a water bottle and then a tea cup.
He suffers from an allergy.
Ka Wai Cheung mentioned that he loves the venue at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast. He also let it be known that when in Northern Ireland he is playing in a hostile territory. I actually have family in Northern Ireland and visited the country over 30 years ago and I felt you could cut the tension with a knife. I have now seen every location on the World Snooker Tour and the fans still make a statement on the excellent play but only for the white folks. I was so pleased how England, Wales and Scotland admired the excellent play coming from a player wherever he or she came from and likewise China has it in their culture to be ultra respectful. As the saying goes, when an athlete does something spectacular and the fans remain silent, the silence is defining. On a happier note I am impressed how many people watched the entire matches on their table for the entire morning, afternoon and night. I was also pleased to see so many women in the stands.
Competition on the WST is very tough, and it’s a game of millimeters.
Despite outward appearances, sporting confidence can be a fragile thing — ask Luca Brecel about that, or maybe even John Higgins — to me, Higgins does not seem to be the same confident person/player he was a few years ago, when I would’ve unhesitatingly picked him as THE player to prevail in a must-win frame.