Zhao Xintong is only seven frames away from becoming the first Chinese world champion, after racing into an 11-6 lead over Mark Williams in the World Championship final at the Crucible.
Zhao did much of the damage in Sunday afternoon's opening session, compiling a couple of centuries that belied his relative inexperience, while Williams, the elder statesman, turned in a ragged display.
As well as Zhao played, he was given any amount of help from his opponent who might just have been feeling a hangover from his epic semi-final victory over Judd Trump a day earlier.
On three occasions, Williams lost frames he should've won in the opening session, perhaps most painfully the sixth frame when he couldn't get over the line despite making a break of 61.
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When Zhao reeled off runs of 104 and 83 to finish the session in style, the Welshman's bid for a fourth world title was already in tatters.
Williams fights in evening session
However, Williams, bidding to become the oldest ever world champion at the age of 50, rallied valiantly in the evening session, winning the first two frames of the night and dominating the latter part of proceedings.
That Williams only won the extended nine-frame session 5-4 to marginally reduce his arrears to 11-6 will have no doubt left him frustrated, given he might well have won all of the last five frames.
In the end, he won three of them, including the last, but he was in first in frame 15 until yet another loose positional shot allowed Zhao to stop the rot.
Absolute granite.
— WST (@WeAreWST) May 4, 2025
Don't count out Mark Williams.#HaloWorldChampionship pic.twitter.com/77OAp6juEX
And in the following frame, Williams was well set on 63 until missing a relatively straightforward red, with only the following colour needed to pull another frame back.
Again, Zhao mopped up the remaining balls to strike another dagger into Williams' chest, leaving the latter to contemplate a night of missed opportunities and left facing a mountain to climb if it is he who rewrites the history books on Monday.
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