O'Sullivan Eyes Record Eighth World Title at 50 — But Zhao Xintong Stands in His Way
The Numbers Behind a Historic Quest
Twenty-four years separate Ronnie O'Sullivan's first World Snooker Championship triumph from the one he will be chasing when the 2025 edition gets under way at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield this Saturday. The 50-year-old claimed his debut world title in 2001 — defeating John Higgins in the final — and has since added six further crowns in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2020, and 2022, leaving him level with Stephen Hendry on seven career Crucible titles. No player in the modern era has surpassed that mark, and O'Sullivan now has an opportunity to stand alone at the summit of snooker's most coveted record.
His 2022 victory, secured at the age of 46, already stands in the record books as the oldest winning performance in a Crucible final. Should he go one better this year, the magnitude of that achievement would be difficult to overstate. For context, Hendry won all seven of his world titles between 1992 and 1999, completing the haul aged just 29. O'Sullivan, by contrast, is still competing for the sport's biggest prize more than two decades after his debut Sheffield success.
Form Heading Into Sheffield
O'Sullivan's 2024–25 season has not been one of his most dominant by conventional metrics, yet there have been significant flashes of quality. Most notably, at last month's World Open in Yushan, China, he produced a break of 153 — the highest ever recorded in professional snooker at any level. The score was made possible after an early snooker awarded him a free ball, which effectively acted as a 16th red, but the execution required to convert such an opportunity into a maximum-plus clearance speaks to O'Sullivan's enduring technical brilliance. He reached the final of that event, underlining that his big-match consistency remains intact.
Shaun Murphy, the 2005 world champion, faced O'Sullivan in the last 16 of the World Open, losing 5-3, and offered a measured assessment of where the five-time ranking event winner currently stands. "When I played him in Yushan he seemed pretty sharp and it was a very high-quality match," Murphy told the BBC. "He has not been at his brilliant best this season, but when he gets in and in flow he is still as good as ever." Murphy added that a record eighth title would represent "an incredible achievement", while noting that O'Sullivan "is running out of time" — though he was careful to add that you "wouldn't put anything past him".
Zhao Xintong: The Champion and the Favourite
If O'Sullivan is to write that particular chapter of snooker history, he will need to navigate a field that includes the reigning world champion in the kind of form that makes him a formidable obstacle. Zhao Xintong, who became China's first world champion when he lifted the trophy in 2024, arrives at the Crucible having won four ranking events this season — including three of the last five on the calendar. His most recent statement of intent came at the Tour Championship in Manchester earlier this month, where he dismantled world number one Judd Trump 10-3 in the final, a scoreline that sent a clear message to the rest of the field.
Bookmakers have installed Zhao as the tournament favourite ahead of O'Sullivan, and Murphy's view reflects the wider consensus in the paddock. "On form you would make Xintong favourite to retain his title," he said. "It's the first time in a long time when Ronnie is not the number one favourite for the tournament." That shift in the betting hierarchy is itself a measure of how comprehensively Zhao has established himself at the top of the world rankings picture since his Sheffield breakthrough.
Opening Round and Tournament Structure
The 2025 World Championship spans 17 days, with the final scheduled to begin on Sunday, 4 May and conclude the following day. O'Sullivan — who, along with Trump, was among the seeded players absent from Friday's media day at the Crucible — opens his campaign on Tuesday and Wednesday against Chinese debutant He Guoqiang. Zhao, as defending champion, will begin his title defence from the opposite end of the draw.
Whether O'Sullivan can reach an eighth final, let alone claim an eighth title, will depend on sustaining the level Murphy witnessed in Yushan over a gruelling best-of-19 and best-of-25 format as the tournament progresses. The statistics suggest the Rocket's Crucible record is unrivalled in the sport's modern era. Whether he can add to it at 50 — against a reigning champion in the form of his life — is the defining question as snooker's showpiece event returns to Sheffield.
