Wu Yize credits family sacrifices after historic world snooker triumph
Wu Yize beat Shaun Murphy 18-17, then said his parents were the real champions after years of hospital visits, travel and sacrifice.
Wu Yize stood one frame from defeat and one frame from history at The Crucible, then edged Shaun Murphy 18-17 to become the second-youngest world snooker champion and only the second player from China to win the world title. The final-frame thriller added another chapter to China’s rise in the sport, coming just a year after Zhao Xintong became the first Chinese world champion.
What Wu chose to talk about after the match was not the trophy, but the people who carried him to it. He said his parents were the real champions, and that since he decided to leave school his father had been by his side. He also said his mother had been in poor health for a long time and was often in hospital while he was in Sheffield, though she is now much better and has visited him in the UK for only the second time.
That account gave the title a far more personal edge than the scoreboard alone could show. Wu’s mother kept the family antiques business running while his father took him to tournaments, a division of labour that turned the family home into a support system for a child with a cue in his hand and a career that demanded extraordinary patience. When Wu was 11, his father brought him to the Yushan International Billiards Academy to be assessed by Australian coach Roger Leighton, an early bet on a player who would later become one of the World Snooker Tour’s brightest young talents.
Wu turned professional in 2021 and has been building toward this moment for several seasons. He reached the 2024 English Open final before losing 9-7 to Neil Robertson, then won his first ranking title at the 2025 International Championship in Nanjing by beating John Higgins. That breakthrough, followed by the Crucible triumph, confirmed a rapid ascent that has been shaped as much by family discipline as by individual talent.
The win also sharpens the significance of China’s growing influence in snooker. Zhao Xintong’s title in 2025 already reset expectations for Chinese players at the top of the game; Wu’s victory suggests that Zhao may not be an exception, but the beginning of a deeper shift. For all the attention on the final frame in Sheffield, the larger story began years earlier in Yushan, in hospital corridors, and in the work of parents who kept the family moving long before the cameras arrived.
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