Meet Wu Yize, the new snooker world champion marking game’s ‘golden era in China’
The 22-year-old’s win at the sport’s ‘spiritual home’ has propelled him to superstardom, shines spotlight on his parents’ role in his success
An 18-17 victory over Shaun Murphy, hailed as marking the “golden era of Chinese snooker”, has propelled the 22-year-old to superstardom in his home country, with the hashtag “Wu Yize wins the World Championship” getting 40 million views on social media platform Weibo, where it topped the list of trending topics on Tuesday.
Zhao Xintong, who was eliminated by Murphy in the quarter-finals, was the first one to do it just a year ago. Ding Junhui came close a decade earlier, but he fell 18-14 to Mark Selby in 2016, and never got close again.
Having never won a match at the Sheffield venue before this year, Wu rose to the top on his third trip to the sport’s “spiritual home”, a feat previously managed only by the legendary Steve Davis and Zhao.
Seven-time champions Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O’Sullivan had their first taste of world title success in their fifth and ninth visits respectively. Other multi-time champions, John Higgins and Mark Williams, won their first titles at the fourth time of asking.
From winning the national youth title in 2018 to winning the IBSF World Under-21 Championship the same year at the age of 14, Wu took three finals and 14 months to win his first ranking tournament, when he beat Higgins 10-6 at the International Championship in Nanjing last November.