SINCE snooker began its rankings system in 1975, only 12 players have held the number one spot. This is fewer than the number of players who have won the World Championship in the same period, a tally that now stands at 25 after first-time winners in each of the last four years.

One of those winners, in 2025, was Zhao Xintong, who will become the 13th world number one at the conclusion of the Wuhan Open on Saturday, thanks to his quarter-final win against Neil Robertson.

As the relatively small number of players to have reached the top spot suggests, it’s no easy feat. It marks another big achievement for Zhao and is another milestone in Chinese snooker’s continued rise.

For decades since its introduction in 1975, the rankings system was calculated and updated on a yearly basis, with three greats of the game, Ray Reardon, Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry dominating the top of the charts in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s.

Only four players held the number one spot between 1975 and 1997, with Canadian Cliff Thorburn the only player to break up the dominance of the aforementioned trio by reaching the summit for the 1981/82 season.

There was then a period from 1998 when Hendry, John Higgins, Mark Williams, and Ronnie O’Sullivan traded places at the top, before the system moved to rolling updates at the conclusion of each tournament in 2010.

The switch to such a system might have been expected to lead to a much longer list of players reaching the top spot, but only six new players, including Zhao, who will officially take his place on Sunday, have been number one during that time.

Mark Selby has been the dominant player in the rankings during this rolling period, followed by the previous world number one, Judd Trump, with O’Sullivan popping up in the top spot now and again until as recently as 2024.

Though Zhao became the first Chinese player to win the World Championship, he is not the first to hold the number one spot. That accolade goes to one of the pioneers of Chinese snooker, Ding Junhui, who held it twice for short periods at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015.

Zhao’s convincing 5-1 win against Robertson, himself a former number one, propelled the 29-year-old to the top of the rankings and set up a semi-final with Xiao Guodong, who has won the past two editions of the Wuhan Open and was looking to make it three in a row.

The winner of that match will face Chang Bingyu in the final, guaranteeing that it will be an all-Chinese affair.

Chang defeated O’Sullivan 6-3 in their semi-final on Friday, having already knocked out Trump in the quarters. 

The 24-year-old could be the next of the Chinese contingent to trouble the top end of the rankings and start to make his mark in the latter stages of the big tournaments.

Zhao becoming the first world champion from China in 2025 was quickly followed up by a second when Wu Yize won the title earlier this year. 

It was a tournament in which Chang only narrowly missed out on qualification for the final stages at the Crucible Theatre, losing a high-profile qualifier against 2023 champion Luca Brecel. He did make a 147 in that qualifying match, though, claiming the 2026 tournament’s highest break prize.

Meetings between Zhao and Chang in the latter stages of tournaments could become a regular occurrence, but regardless of whether he wins this latest ranking event on home soil, Zhao has already reached another milestone.

“Before the match, I had a rough idea about the situation,” Zhao said of the possibility of reaching the number one spot.

“A lot of fans had mentioned it to me, and I had also seen some of the comments. They said that this match [against Robertson] was a battle for the world number one spot.

“At the moment, I haven’t really had the chance to take it in or savour it fully. I think after tomorrow, I’ll probably start to feel it more. 

“Becoming world number one was definitely one of my dreams when I was growing up, but what I’m aiming for isn’t just to briefly hold the world number one spot. 

“What I want is to keep learning from the top players like O’Sullivan and others, to make my game more consistent, achieve even better results, and solidify my ranking.”

Crowds have been sparse for some sessions of the Wuhan Open, but the auditorium was packed for the semi-finals and for several matches involving Chinese players, including the one between Robertson and Zhao. 

The Optics Valley Gymnasium, where the tournament is being held at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, will likely be sold out for Saturday’s final. 

Zhao is the favourite to defeat his 37-year-old compatriot Xiao in their semi-final at the time of writing on Friday, but nothing is a given.

Xiao is eager to become one of only five players to win the same ranking event on three consecutive occasions, the others being Reardon, Davis, Hendry and Trump.

One thing that is a given is Zhao’s rise to number one. His aim now is to stay there and become snooker’s latest great, dominant player in a sport that has a long history of them.