Wu Yize’s World Championship win was not a breakthrough, but a signal that China’s dominance in snooker is coming, announced Ding Junhui after watching his compatriot conquer the Crucible on Monday.
The 22-year-old beat Shaun Murphy 18-17 in a brilliant final in Sheffield, completing a remarkable run to the title having never won a match at the Crucible before this year.
It was thrilling stuff from the attacking young talent, also winning a deciding frame epic against Mark Allen in the semis and downing Hossein Vafaei, Mark Selby and Lei Peifan earlier in the piece.
Wu becomes China’s second world champion after Zhao Xintong lifted the trophy last year, suggesting a turning of the tide on the baize.
Before the back-to-back Chinese champions, non-British World Championship winners were few and far between.
Since the tournament moved to the Crucible in 1977, just Canada’s Cliff Thorburn (1980), Ireland’s Ken Doherty (1997), Australia’s Neil Robertson (2010) and Belgium’s Luca Brecel (2023) had triumphed in Sheffield as overseas players.
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Now China has come to the fore and the pioneer of Chinese snooker suggests there is plenty more success to come.
Ding wrote on social media site Weibo: ‘Congratulations to Wu Yize for winning the 2026 World Snooker Championship! Happy for you, and proud of China’s snooker today!
‘From Zhao Xintong to Wu Yize, Chinese players have stood on the highest podium of the World Championship for two consecutive years. This is not just a breakthrough, but our time is coming!’
Wu also warned the rest of the snooker world that the best is still to come from the Chinese players.
Asked if we could now see a long line of world champions from China, he said: ‘I would hope so, because the Chinese players have been making so many improvements. I think more and more Chinese players can win this World Championship. The best is still yet to come.’
We are not at a period of Chinese dominance in snooker yet, even at this World Championship that was not really the case.
Three of the four semi-finalists were British and but for an incredible missed black from Mark Allen against Wu, both finalists would have been.
11 of the 32 players at the Crucible this year were Chinese and five of the world’s top 16 are from China, with Wu, Zhao and Ding joined by Xiao Guodong and Si Jiahui.
Remarkably, there were 15 different ranking event winners over the last season, three of them were Chinese – Wu, Zhao and Xiao. 28 of the 128 professional players last season represented China.
So there is not a great argument to say that China is dominating snooker just yet, but that does appear to be the direction of travel.
There are only three players under 30 years old in the world’s top 16 and seven under 30 in the top 32. All of those players are from China.
There are also some standout young talents further down the rankings, most notably Chang Bingyu who reached the Scottish Open final last year and beat Shaun Murphy 4-0 at the Welsh Open, finishing the match with a 100 per cent pot success rate.
The 23-year-old finished the season at number 25 on the one-year ranking list and looks ready to burst into the upper echelons of the world rankings in the near future.
17-year-old Lan Yuhao is the second youngest player on the professional tour and, while he is clearly behind in his development, impressed in his first season as a pro and clearly has a bright future.
There are more coming as well, with 18-year-old Wang Xinbo set to be on the professional tour next season for the first time and big things expected of him.
His 15-year-old brother Wang Xinzhong is also a brilliant talent, having won two games at the International Championship last year as a wildcard, before only losing 6-5 to Shaun Murphy.
The younger of the Wang brothers was just 14 at the time and Murphy was stunned by what he saw from the teenager.
‘I’ve never seen anything like that,’ Murphy told World Snooker Tour. ‘I was good at 14. Ronnie [O’Sullivan] was good at 14, as were many others. I think that young man may well be the best 14-year-old I’ve ever seen.
‘He has everything. I kept waiting for him to crack but he played like someone who has 20 titles and doesn’t have a care in the world. I think I’ve just seen the future of snooker. Unbelievable.’
During the World Championship final, Stephen Hendry hailed the top Chinese stars and hoped the brightest young talents the UK has to offer can compete.
‘The talent coming through from China is quite frightening,’ he said on the BBC. ‘Xintong last year, Wu Yize now, a guy called Chang Bingyu. The young talent is frightening.
‘Hopefully we get some young talent, Stan Moody showed well here, Liam Pullen.’
Moody, Pullen and Poland’s Antoni Kowalski all made their Crucible debuts this year, all losing in their opening games but all showing enough to suggest they will be back.
Moody, 19, is now up to a career high of 40 in the world rankings, while 22-year-old Kowalski is at 65 and 20-year-old Pullen at 73.
They are all players on the rise, as is the youngest professional Michal Szubarczyk, Poland’s 15-year-old wonderkid.
He does not turn 16 until January and has already got his feet under the table on the pro tour, winning two games in World Championship qualifying last month.
Promising young talent from Europe is there and developing all the time, their time is coming too, but as Ding suggested, the time for Chinese players is sooner.