PICKING UP THE CUE AT 8
Zhao was born in the Chinese city of Xian, but as a child moved to the metropolis of Shenzhen, just over the border from Hong Kong, when his parents went there for work.
An only child, he first became interested in snooker when he was eight years old, after seeing some tables set up outside small stores near his home.
As his interest grew, his parents put a snooker table in one of the rooms in their home and made it his practice room.
However, they were sceptical about his sporting ambitions and wanted him to study.
In 2015, a teenage Zhao told a documentary that he wanted to be like Chinese snooker trailblazer Ding Junhui. Ding, the so-called grandfather of Chinese snooker, won the UK Championship three times and the Masters in 2011.
In the 2015 documentary, called “Becoming Ding Junhui”, Zhao’s mother recalls: “I asked him, when you’ve finished university, what job will you do?
“He said, ‘Play snooker’. He said it very firmly, he didn’t need to think about it.”
She said that was the moment she decided to fully support his decision to make snooker his life.
Acknowledging the support from his parents, Zhao said: “I’m the luckiest kid in the snooker world.”
The same programme includes a ringing endorsement from Ding’s father, calling Zhao his “favourite” player and a “rare” talent.
SNOOKER’S ROGER FEDERER
By his teens, Zhao was beating professionals in exhibition matches, Williams among them.
The left-hander followed the trail of Chinese players to Sheffield, where he plays at Victoria’s Snooker Academy, run by Victoria Shi, a 10-minute walk from the Crucible.
Realising Zhao’s enormous potential, Shi asked snooker great Ronnie O’Sullivan to lend a hand in mentoring him. The Englishman obliged, practising and dining with Zhao, passing on tips.
“He could be the greatest of all time with his talent, his ability – I always say he’s Roger Federer with a snooker cue in his hands,” O’Sullivan said in 2022, as reported by the South China Morning Post.
