Richard Mann reflects on this year's World Snooker Championship, nominating his highlights from 17 magical days at the Crucible Theatre.
Story of the World Championship
A star is born. Wu Yize is champion of the world.
As I'll lay out below, there has been story after story from a World Snooker Championship that has given us so much. But Wu Yize is the story, and I reckon he might well be for years to come.
Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. Ronnie O'Sullivan said just a few months ago that Wu was a world champion in waiting, as did the man he beat in the final on Monday, Shaun Murphy.
When Wu blitzed John Higgins in the final of the International Championship in November, it was clear we were dealing with a special talent, just 21 years of age at the time.
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But while his best game had been almost unplayable, his worst was pretty ordinary. 'You won't win at the Crucible without a b-game, old cock' they'd say in South Yorkshire, and Neil Robertson gave him a pasting and a reality check in the second round of the UK Championship in York.
None of that boded well for a second-round World Championship meeting with Mark Selby over three sessions, but Wu has made giants strides in a remarkably short space of time and he held off the four-time champion 13-11. Suddenly Wu looked the real deal.
Hossein Vafaei couldn't live with him in the last eight, and not even Mark Allen, a record-long Crucible frame and a crazy finish we'll be talking about for years to come could stop Wu from reaching his first world final.
There he met an inspired Murphy, the pair delivering a match for the ages and a standard of play you just don't see in Crucible finals, under such intense pressure at the end of 17 days of toil.
This was different. Wu is different. A beast. He pots for fun, anything from anywhere, and just keeps potting. His break-building and positional play already has a touch of O'Sullivan about it, and he's got steel, too.
Where Zhao Xintong blitzed all-comers 12 months ago with a breathless display of attacking snooker, Wu has done it all ways.
Zhao is Zhao, and he'll continue to bulldoze his opposition when firing on all cylinders, but Wu looks to be cut from a different cloth. He wins close matches, he can battle and scrap with the Selbys and the Allens. And he can win that way. He can also trade punches with a heavy-hitter like Murphy.
This young man can do it all, and he's only going to get better. His safety play, already drastically improved from the start of the season, will keep evolving as he hones his craft.
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Zhao, we must remember is now 29. Wu only turned 22 last month. He has time on his side, ice in his veins and so much more experience to gain.
A star has been born, potentially the brightest of them all. What a player Wu could become.
(Sliding doors) moment of the World Championship
In truth, the semi-final between Wu Yize and Mark Allen had everything, and that match could have conceivably taken every award. Semi-final Saturday at the Crucible and this one delivered one of the great snooker nights.
Once Allen got back to parity following an almost catastrophic first session, you could sense this match was going all the way, but Allen had a couple of chances to finish the job and win 17-15, firstly when missing a simple red to the bottom corner pocket and then again a golden opportunity just minutes later.
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In a strange sequence of events, I asked a few of the players when doing interviews at the Crucible on the eve of the tournament about sliding doors moments in their careers. Matches they might look back on, either at the Crucible or somewhere else, and wonder what might have been. If they could have one shot back to potentially change their careers.
It made for fascinating viewing, and we’ll have that one on our platforms in the future. As you’d expect, Allen was typically generous with his time and honest with his answers. Spoiler alert: the match he highlighted was a World Championship semi-final, but that heartbreak story doesn't hold a candle to the one millions of viewers watched in horror late on Saturday night.
Having regrouped and gathered himself following that earlier missed red, Allen was back in control of the 32nd frame and had one foot in the final when potting a long pink into the yellow pocket and sending the cue ball down the table to land plum on the final black. Wu was done; only the basket cases were laying 1.01 on the Betfair Exchange.
A long bridge with his hand on the cushion, but that is generally Allen’s preference with these types of shots. No problem. Punch and a ‘yeahhh’ from someone in the crowd, before he was drowned out by gasps and groans, and disbelief. Allen had somehow missed.
A wry smile, a look to up the heavens as if in need of divine intervention. But there was no one looking back down at Allen, just the bright and unforgiving lights of the Crucible Theatre, Allen now almost swaying like a dazed and confused boxer beneath them. His face turned red, and then his neck, as he pivoted from the table and stumbled back to his chair.
Pressure.
With the black over the pocket, Wu did the rest, and then somehow won a deciding frame which Allen again dominated for large parts. In the end, Mark Allen’s name wasn’t on the trophy, and foot in the final became two feet heading for the exit door.
There’s your sliding doors moment, but I’m not sure I’ll be brave enough to ask about it in 12 months’ time.
Quote of the World Championship
When I first started on my journey in this industry, I read Dave Nevison’s book ‘A Bloody Good Winner’. It was a bit shit, in all honestly. I don’t even think the Charity Shop wanted it when I’d done. But listening to Mark Allen’s post-match interview after that crushing semi-final loss on Saturday, I couldn’t help think of that book title. A bloody good winner.
But what about a bloody good loser? I must admit to having never really been a fan of the concept, personally. I detest the criticism of Judd Trump when he gives the odd bad interview after a tough defeat, though it must be said that he gives many more gracious ones. Why must anyone have to enjoy losing?
Losing is hard and it is painful. Or it should be. And fulfilling media duties in the aftermath of tense, high-pressure matches that have lasted three days must be particularly challenging, even more so in circumstances like Saturday's.
What that in mind, and given all the emotions at play, it was nice to read and hear so many snooker fans old and new fulsome in praise for Allen’s conduct after the match. He carried himself with such class and dignity in the aftermath of a loss that left him feeling 'devastated', and though his moment of horror was the moment of the whole 17 days, he was at pains to make sure Wu’s achievements weren’t lost in the chaos.
Allen accepted that he hadn’t deserved to win having missed that black and said that to his mind, ‘the right person is in the final’.
As a sports fan, it stung to hear a professional I admire greatly talk that way in what must’ve been such a raw and painful moment. Just to get his words out was an achievement, but his choice of words and the tone with which they were delivered won him plenty of admirers.
He’s a class act, Allen, of that there can be no doubt.
Occasion of the World Championship
The 2026 edition of the World Snooker Championship has been one of the most enjoyable I can remember in many years.
The recent competition isn't strong, it must be said. The pockets were too big the year Luca Brecel won it, and the tournament had almost sent itself to sleep come the final weekend a year later, when Kyren Wilson beat Jak Jones in the final. I'm sorry, but it didn't do it for me.
What about Sheffield 2026? A genuine delight.
The snooker has been terrific throughout, the weather lovely, and we've had story after story to keep things moving along in what is clearly a test of stamina for players, fans, and those poor souls tasked with covering the whole thing.
It feels like so much has happened in these 17 days. You haven't forgotten about Stan Moody's Crucible debut already have you? When the Halifax teenager strutted into the theatre for the first time and delivered an early show that had 2024 champion Wilson rocking on the ropes.
And we shouldn't forget that Shaun Murphy was almost on his way home in round one, but for a brilliant, never-say-die break in his deciding frame with Fan Zhengyi.
The conclusion of the quarter-finals was a terrific day, overshadowed by semi-finals Saturday but still full of drama, some close matches and quite brilliant snooker across all four of them. Murphy's fist-pumps when beating defending champion Zhao Xintong, John Higgins proving once again to be the old master, and Wu Yize being compared to a computer game.
But what every tournament needs is an occasion. A match to shape the whole thing, to get fans talking, newspapers writing, the broadcasters buzzing. So when Ronnie O'Sullivan versus John Higgins was announced in the last 16, it was on.
Sheffield was alive, you could feel it all around the venue. The World Championship had arrived. Two of the best players of all time, long-time rivals, and iconic stars who can to some degree transcend sports, particularly in the case of O'Sullivan who former England footballer Paul Scholes paid £450 to watch four frames of in the second session of his first-round cruise.
O'Sullivan against Higgins didn't disappoint. The Rocket started like, well, a rocket, racing into a 6-2 lead with the type of spellbinding snooker that had many of us believing world title number eight could be incoming. Higgins won the second session to stay alive, but the best was still to come.
Higgins was a player transformed in the third session, doing an O'Sullivan on O'Sullivan with a barrage of big breaks, but just as he appeared to have turned the tide, the man himself took the match the distance with a typically silky break of 81 that defied the situation. He's still got it.
Higgins held firm, dominating the decider before a clearly disappointed O'Sullivan called time on another epic tussle between two of the sport's titans.
It wasn't just the match itself, that was only part of it. It was the build-up, the talk, the pre-match interviews full of glowing respect for each other. Memories of great matches of yesteryear were evoked. Crucible classics, Masters magic and so many more.
And we realised, with a sense of sadness, that these days won't last forever. We might never witness O'Sullivan against Higgins again anywhere, never mind at the Crucible.
If that was indeed the last time, what an occasion it was. Higgins 13-12 O'Sullivan at the Crucible. How lucky we were to witness it all.
Shot of the Championship
Honourable mentions to a snooker Mark Allen (yes, him again) played in his match with Wu Yize, which ultimately wasn’t enough to win him the frame. Nor was Neil Robertson’s extraordinary pot against John Higgins when he rifled a long red into the bottom cushion and into the middle pocket via a kiss on the yellow. We’ll call it a plant, a very good one.
Winners are grinners, however, so the award goes to John Higgins’ rest shot on the yellow in his match with Robertson. The key shot in the frame, it was one that ultimately put him on the cusp of victory, moving him 12-10 ahead in the quarter-finals race to 13.
So much of sport is about context, and that was a huge moment in a real Crucible dust-up, a nip-and-tuck affair, the kind Higgins has lost his fair share of over the last few years, one of the most famous to Robertson in the Tour Championship final of 2022.
Moreover, Higgins, by his own admission, has never been the best rest player, and with the pockets at this World Championship playing reasonably tight – the tournament has been better for it, by the way – a shot of pinpoint precision and supreme timing was required to nip the yellow in, screw the white off the side cushion and bring it back out for the green.
There was significant pressure on this one, with absolutely no margin for error, but as the replay confirms, Higgins could not have played it any better, making the subsequent clearance a virtual formality as he won the frame by a single point.
Higgins later told TNT Sports that he believed that yellow was the best shot of his career.
John Virgo absence leaves gaping hole
Of the many wonderful tributes to the late John Virgo we have seen and heard over the last few weeks, it was Ken Doherty's that got me most. 'There's always gap' was a trademark Virgo line, 'but there's certainly a gap this year without you. At the Crucible, in snooker, and in life' said Doherty.
And he's right.
Snooker fans always knew this World Championship, the first without Virgo calling and keeping us company on Bank Holiday Monday, was going to have a sense of sadness attached to it. It was hard to imagine the concluding session of a World Championship final without Virgo telling the story.
The BBC, it must be said, have done a terrific job of paying their respects to the great man, ensuring his candle has burnt bright over the course of this tournament and that he is not quickly forgotten.
But life moves on, and the likes of Joe Perry and current man of the moment Steve Hallworth have stepped into the BBC commentary box and done a good job. Others may take a different view, but Shaun Murphy has been a big miss on our screens, and TNT Sports' Neal Foulds remains the standout snooker voice across the industry, be it on commentary or in the studio.
But when you think of the BBC and big snooker finals, particularly at the Crucible, you think of John Virgo.
I felt that on Monday night, and am sure many others did, too.
Doherty was right. You've left a gap, JV.