60 million players and counting: Is this UK-dominated sport about to have a Chinese revolution?

Trailing 12-10 in a best of 35 frames World Snooker Championship final, China’s Wu Yize slipped out a back door of the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield and steadied himself with a quiet moment, away from the bright lights and the baize.

Hours later, he was standing centre stage as a world champion.

After moving to the United Kingdom as a teenager – at times sharing a bed with his father in a windowless room – the 22-year-old from Lanzhou, in northwest China, completed one of the sport’s most compelling ascents, overturning a deficit to defeat England’s Shaun Murphy in front of an estimated television audience in the tens of millions of viewers in his homeland.

By Monday evening, Wu had potted his way to victory, becoming the second-youngest winner of snooker’s most prestigious event – Stephen Hendry won as a 21-year-old in 1990 – and the latest symbol of a seismic shift in the sport’s power base.

His triumph made it back-to-back Chinese world champions following Zhao Xintong’s breakthrough 12 months earlier – a remarkable turn for a tournament that, from its inception in 1927 until 2024, had never been won by an Asian player.

For nearly a century, the world championship was dominated by players from the UK and Ireland. Australian pair Horace Lindrum (1952) and Neil Robertson (2010), and Canada’s Cliff Thorburn (1980), were rare outliers.

But the past two years have suggested a new order.

Zhao’s win was significant, but Wu’s rags-to-riches accomplishment, after a final frame thriller, marks a significant moment for a sport booming in China.

“All of a sudden, the floodgates have opened,” said Steve Davis, a six-time world champion. “The style in which they are playing is the benchmark for the European and British players to come.”

The scale of snooker’s growth in China is staggering. An estimated 50 to 60 million people play, with a reported 300,000 billiards and snooker halls across the country – up from about 34,000 in 2005. Many cater for pool and other cue sports, but snooker has surged into the mainstream, with Chinese state television elevating its coverage.

More than 150 million viewers reportedly tuned in to watch Zhao’s win last year.

“That is unthinkable in Britain,” said Scotland’s John Higgins, a four-time world champion.

Much of the rise can be traced to Ding Junhui, the former world No.1 who inspired a generation after his emergence in the mid-2000s. Ding’s run to the 2016 world championship final – where he lost to Mark Selby – cemented his status as a national icon and accelerated the sport’s expansion.

At the start of 2016, no Chinese players were ranked inside the world’s top 16. World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn predicted at the time that one day, half of the elite bracket would come from China.

A decade on, that projection is edging closer to reality, with five Chinese players inside the top 16.

Ding’s legacy is tangible in Sheffield, where the Ding Junhui Snooker Academy sits five minutes from the Crucible, housing rows of tables and a pipeline of young Chinese talent chasing the same dream.

Back home, cue sports have diversified. Chinese 8-ball, or “heyball”, has exploded in popularity and lured players away from snooker. Yet successive world titles suggest the balance may now be swinging back.

“When we first went to China, there were no snooker tables and no snooker clubs, then came Ding’s victory and it became a national sport 10 years later,” Jason Ferguson, the chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA), told the BBC.

“There are now 300,000 billiards clubs in China. It’s huge. Everyone is watching on mobiles, on television and the clubs are full. It is a dream come true for someone like me that has worked over there for 20 years.”

Wu’s victory also carried moments of levity amid the pressure. At one point, he thought sections of the Crucible crowd were booing him, only to discover they were echoing the drawn-out chant familiar to fans of England cricketer Joe Root.

“Wuuuuu,” not “booooo”.

“The staff told me they were cheering me on,” Wu said afterwards.

For Robertson, knocked out by Higgins 13-10 in the quarter-finals, it was another reminder of how the landscape has shifted since his breakthrough in 2010, when he hoped he would not be the last Australian to lift the trophy.

After many attempts, he is getting closer to another world crown, but says his cue ball control was not where it needed to be.

Wu, flanked by his parents after his win, left China at 16 with his father, moved to Sheffield and turned professional within a year. Now, he stands as the latest standard-bearer for a generation.

“My parents are the true champions,” Wu said. “They are the source of my strengths. I love them so much. I am so happy.

“I played for myself, my family, and China. I think other Chinese players can win this championship. The best is yet to come.”

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