Zhao Xintong Dismantles Higgins 10-1 in the Most Brutal Night of the Wizard's Career
A Champion Undone
There is a particular silence that falls over a snooker arena when something genuinely historic is unfolding — not the hushed reverence of a century break in progress, but something heavier, almost mournful. That was the atmosphere inside Manchester's arena on Friday evening as Zhao Xintong systematically dismantled John Higgins frame by frame, leaving the four-time world champion to endure the worst defeat of his 34-year professional career. The final scoreline — 10-1 to Zhao — tells the story with a bluntness that no amount of context can soften.
Higgins, the defending Tour Championship title-holder who had beaten Mark Selby 10-8 in last year's final with all the grit and guile that has defined his career, was barely recognisable as the same player. The 50-year-old from Wishaw had arrived in Manchester as a man capable of competing with anyone on the circuit. He left with a defeat that will sit uncomfortably in the record books for a long time to come.
Zhao in Unstoppable Form
To place the full blame at Higgins' door, however, would be to do Zhao a disservice — because the 29-year-old was nothing short of extraordinary. The reigning world champion compiled 11 breaks over 50, including a century, across an eleven-frame semi-final that felt, at times, less like a contest and more like an extended masterclass. His cueing was rhythmic and precise, his positional play almost effortless, and his decision-making sharp throughout.
"My cueing was very good," Zhao said afterwards, with the understated confidence of a man who knows exactly what he's capable of. "I tried not to think too much — I just enjoyed the table and concentrated on the balls." That simplicity of focus, that ability to switch off the noise and trust his technique, has become Zhao's defining trait this season. And it is proving devastatingly effective.
Higgins did salvage the 10th frame — a moment that prevented the scorecard from reading a near-unthinkable 10-0 — but it offered only the briefest of reprieves. Zhao stepped back to the table in the very next frame and closed out victory with a composed break of 85, wrapping up one of the most emphatic wins seen in a ranking event semi-final in recent memory.
Putting the Defeat in Context
For a player of Higgins' stature, the nine-frame margin of defeat carries a particular sting. He had previously suffered two losses by nine frames — a 13-4 defeat to Stephen Hendry at the 2012 World Championship, and an 18-9 hammering by Judd Trump in the 2019 Crucible final — but neither of those came in a best-of-19 format. Losing 10-1 in such a short match represents a level of one-sidedness that even the sport's most experienced campaigner had never encountered across three-and-a-half decades on the tour.
It is the kind of result that prompts uncomfortable questions, though perhaps not about Higgins' standing in the game — he won this very title just twelve months ago — so much as about how extraordinary Zhao's current form genuinely is.
Zhao's Place in History
The numbers surrounding Zhao's season are quietly staggering. His victory over Higgins moves him into his sixth ranking final, and he has won each of the previous five — a record of perfection that only Steve Davis, Mark Williams and Neil Robertson had previously achieved across snooker's modern era. The company alone signals the magnitude of what he is building.
More immediately, Zhao is now on the verge of becoming the first player in history to win all three events in the Players Series in a single season. Having already claimed the World Grand Prix and the Players Championship in February, only Sunday's final against world number one Judd Trump stands between him and that landmark. Whatever happens at that final, Zhao is guaranteed to rise to a career-high fourth in the world rankings — remarkable progress for a player who only returned to the circuit after a lengthy suspension.
"This season I have been in four finals and I am enjoying every moment and trying to get better," he said. "To play Judd in a final for the first time will be a big moment for me. It will be very tough."
Trump Waits in the Final
Tough it certainly will be. Judd Trump, the world number one, is a player of comparable ambition and firepower, and Sunday's final represents the first time these two have met at this stage of a tournament. Zhao is under no illusions about the scale of the challenge — but then, a player who has just taken apart John Higgins 10-1 on the biggest occasion has earned the right to feel quietly confident.
For Higgins, the road back begins now. There will be other tournaments, other chances — he has shown throughout his career that setbacks, even painful ones, rarely define him for long. But this one, the worst of his professional life, will linger. And rightly so, if only because it marks the moment Zhao Xintong announced himself as snooker's most complete force of the 2025-26 season.
