As the ticker tape rained down on Wu Yize and the Chinese flag was draped over the shoulders of snooker’s newest superstar as he clutched the sport’s most famous prize on Monday evening, it was hard not to imagine that this sport was changing in front of our eyes for ever.
If Zhao Xintong broke through the glass ceiling for Chinese snooker 12 months ago, then the exploits of the sport’s newest Crucible king may have just shattered it into a thousand pieces. The boy who came to England with his father as a 16-year-old to pursue his dreams, living in a windowless flat in Sheffield, is now the champion of the world.
But this 22-year-old is not your ordinary champion. He plays with the kind of attacking prowess and risk-taking which will make him a household favourite for snooker fans all across the globe, not just back home. China has a second world champion in as many years but Wu’s star will shine brightly wherever he goes.
He scaled snooker’s Mount Everest in unforgettable fashion. The first final to go all the way to the 35th and deciding frame since 2002, Wu looked as though he had spurned his chance when leading 17-16, and he missed a straightforward red to bring a potential championship-winning break to a halt. The magnificent Shaun Murphy then responded to take the final the distance.
But when it mattered most, Wu was the one who held his nerve. With the stakes at their highest and the biggest prize of them all on the line, he produced the break of his life, starting with an aggressive and risky red that epitomises his attitude to the game and finishing with a break of 85 that ensured he would become the second-youngest world champion in history.
“For the past few months, I’ve been living the same life, and I’m delighted I could pull it off,” he said. Wu’s own journey to this point took on extra emotion too when he revealed: “Since I made the decision to drop out of school, my mum has not been in good health. Since we have been here she has been staying in hospital a long time. She has sacrificed everything for me.”
His momentous and nerve-shredding victory is big for Chinese snooker but also fascinating for the wider narrative of the sport’s young stars taking over. Murphy almost represented a one-man guard of a former era, bidding for a second world title 21 years on from his first, when he too was a 22-year-old with the game at his mercy.
How he played his part, taking the final all the way. But in the end it was Wu who held his nerve when it mattered most and in doing so, became the fourth consecutive first-time winner of snooker’s most famous trophy. They have all been under the age of 32; suggesting that snooker could be ready to move on from its older guard.
This was Murphy’s fourth final defeat – his previous one came in 2021, losing 18-15 against Mark Selby – and while this one will undoubtedly sting the most, he had the usual class we have come to expect from the Magician in congratulating his opponent.
“He’s a wonderful world champion,” Murphy said. “I hate being right. I said earlier in the season after we had a great game out in China that he would be world champion one day. It’s just a real shame it was today. But I couldn’t have given it any more.” He certainly could not.
Murphy transformed an overnight 10-7 deficit into a 12-10 lead at the start of Monday’s afternoon session, but Wu’s response of three consecutive frames to lead going into the evening was a sign of things to come. The pair would exchange blows throughout the final session until eventually, finally, something had to give.
First it was 14-14. Then 15-15. Murphy produced a world-class 131 clearance to square it again at 16-16 before Wu produced a break of 91 littered with attacking, carefree shots to move just one frame from immortality.
But suddenly, he blinked: a routine red while on 45 that allowed Murphy to swoop in and take us all the way for only the fourth time in Crucible history.
Quite what goes through the minds of the finalists during that excruciating wait to start a deciding frame is anyone’s guess. For Murphy, the lure of joining the exclusive band of men to have won at the Crucible multiple times. For Wu, the weight of a nation on his shoulders as he sought to create history. It was mere minutes, but must have felt like hours.
Both men would have wanted just once chance. They got one, too; Murphy potted a sumptuous red but was forced to go safe before Wu took on an audacious red to the middle. Lesser players would have turned it down, but not Wu Yize. Not snooker’s newest sensation.