Cue Sports Weekly: Zhao Xintong Is the New World Number One as Judd Trump's Two-Year Reign Ends in Wuhan

Cue Sports Weekly: Zhao Xintong Is the New World Number One as Judd Trump's Two-Year Reign Ends in Wuhan

Two years is a long time at the top of any sport. Judd Trump's run there came to an end this week, and it didn't happen quietly — it happened via a 5-1 hammering from a 24-year-old ranked outside the top 50, on the same day the throne changed hands for good.

Let's get into it.

Zhao Xintong Becomes Snooker's 13th World Number One

Judd Trump has held the world number one ranking since August 2024. On Thursday, at the 2026 Wuhan Open, it ended — beaten 5-1 in the quarter-finals by China's Chang Bingyu, a result nobody saw coming given Chang was ranked outside the top 50 coming into the week.

The writing had been on the wall for a while. Trump's grip on the ranking was always going to loosen this month regardless of Wuhan's outcome — £500,000 from his 2024 Saudi Arabia Masters win was set to drop off his rolling two-year tally, and with that event scrapped from the calendar, there was no way to replace the points except by winning outright in Wuhan. He very nearly did exactly that, storming through the earlier rounds with whitewash wins including a run of breaks reading 92, 74, 88, and 118. Chang simply had the better day when it mattered, closing it out in style. "It was really quite unexpected today," Chang said afterward. "Before yesterday's match I told myself to just relax and play, and that it would be enough if I could produce my own game."

That result turned the day's other quarter-final into a straight shootout for top spot. Zhao Xintong beat Neil Robertson 5-1, pinching a lengthy fourth frame on the black before pulling away with runs of 113 and 54. Zhao is now snooker's 13th world number one, and the second player from China to hold the ranking after compatriot Ding Junhui.

There was a third contender eliminated the same day. Mark Selby, fresh off his historic fourth China Open title the week before, needed another deep run to have a shot at returning to the summit for the first time since 2022 — instead he went down 5-3 to Ronnie O'Sullivan, who advances to face Chang in Friday's semi-final. Zhao faces defending champion Xiao Guodong in the other last-four match.

If you've ever wondered exactly how the world rankings actually work — why points "drop off," why one result can shift the picture this dramatically — it's a genuinely confusing system for anyone outside the sport's inner circle, worth a proper explainer of its own down the track.

Heyball: Sukritthanes Bounces Back in Kielce

A nice follow-up thread for anyone who caught our Pune coverage a couple of weeks back. Waratthanun Sukritthanes — the Thai player who took Kelly Fisher all the way to a shootout in that dramatic Heyball World Championship final before finishing runner-up — has bounced back to win the European Heyball Open in Kielce, beating Mary Talbot 6-3 in the final. Slovenia's Maks Benko took the men's title, coming through a demanding knockout run that included a 7-4 win over Germany's Yuma Dörner in the quarters.

102 players competed across the event, streamed live from all 16 tables via TVSPORTS.PL and the EPBF's own channels — another sign of how much broadcast infrastructure is now being built around heyball specifically, on top of the WPALive.TV setup we mentioned during Pune coverage.

If you're still getting your head around what genuinely separates heyball from the pool most club players grew up on, our Heyball vs 8-Ball comparison tool breaks down the table, the pockets, and the clock properly. And our Heyball Foul & Ball-in-Hand Explainer is worth having bookmarked for exactly the kind of dispute that comes up mid-session.

Drill of the Week: The Century Break Ladder

Discipline: Snooker

Difficulty: Advanced

What it trains: Sustaining scoring form over a long break, the exact thing separating Trump's near-perfect earlier rounds from the players who couldn't keep pace with Chang Bingyu's tonne-heavy run through the same tournament

Setup

A full rack of reds with colours respotted as normal. Nothing unusual here — this is about the run, not the setup.

The Task

Break off, then try to build the longest break you can, red-colour-red-colour, exactly as you would in a match. Write down your score every time you stop, whether from a miss or a finished clearance. Do this five times in a session and track the numbers.

Why It Works

Most club players can pot the first six or seven balls of a break competently. What separates a 30-break from a genuine century is composure and shot selection staying sharp deep into a long run, when the easy pattern's gone and you're having to actually think about position on tricky colours with pressure building. Tracking your numbers over multiple attempts, rather than just playing once and moving on, shows you exactly where your own breaks tend to fall apart — and that's far more useful than vaguely knowing you "struggle with longer breaks" without any real data behind it.

Looking Ahead

Friday's semi-finals in Wuhan pit new world number one Zhao Xintong against defending champion Xiao Guodong, while Ronnie O'Sullivan takes on the in-form Chang Bingyu for a place in Sunday's final. We'll have the result once it's through.

If a rules argument comes up at your own table this week, our Tools section has both foul explainers ready to settle it, plus the free draw maker if you're organizing anything yourself.