3 hours ago
5
Zhao Xintong dominated the opening session of the World Championship final against an out-of-sorts Mark Williams to construct a commanding 7-1 lead.
It was the perfect start for Zhao as he bids to become China's first world champion and only the third player from outside the UK to win the title since 1997.
Breaks of 51 and 77 set the tone in the opening frame after three-time winner Williams missed a long red.
Far from appearing overawed, the 28-year-old, who had to come through qualifying, seemed right at home in his first Crucible final.
He followed up with a century in the second frame and when he took the third on the black against a toiling Williams, he was on course for a healthy advantage.
While Williams briefly stopped the rot before the mid-session interval, he lost a tight fifth frame, then broke down on 61 in the next when he failed to sink the penultimate red to the top corner and was heavily punished as Zhao ruthlessly cleared the table.
Zhao, who won the UK Championship in 2021 but then served a 20-month ban for his involvement in a match-fixing scandal which rocked the sport, is hoping to join Terry Griffiths and Shaun Murphy as the only qualifiers to land snooker's biggest prize since the tournament's 1977 move to South Yorkshire.
He rounded off an impressive afternoon with his second century and a break of 83.
The best-of-35 final resumes at 19:00 BST on Sunday, with the winner on Monday earning a top prize of £500,000.
With Zhao having swept seven-time winner Ronnie O'Sullivan aside in the semi-finals, his meeting with Williams - another of snooker's famed 'Class of 92' - has been billed as having the potential to be a changing-of-the-guard moment for the sport.
The age gap of 22 years is the biggest ever between two Crucible finalists and Zhao was just three years old when Williams won his first Crucible crown in 2000.
Williams jokingly made reference to playing Zhao in an exhibition when he was only a schoolboy after defeating Judd Trump on Saturday.
However, he was unable to replicate the performance he produced against the world number one, when at times he barely looked like missing a pot.
Instead he delivered an error-strewn showing which leaves him with a huge challenge on his hands to rein in a player who has already shown that he can be an impressive frontrunner.
While Zhao had 24 hours off after defeating O'Sullivan with a session to spare, Williams will hope not to go the way of the previous two finalists to finish their semi-finals on Saturday evenings.
Both Jak Jones (7-1) and Mark Selby (6-2) suffered in the first session of the 2023 and 2024 finals and were ultimately unable to turn those contests around against eventual champions Kyren Wilson and Luca Brecel.
