2025 World Snooker Championship

The 2025 World Snooker Championship (officially the 2025 Halo World Snooker Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 19 April to 5 May 2025 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, the 49th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship was staged at the venue. Organised by the World Snooker Tour and sponsored for the first time by technology company Halo Service Solutions, the tournament was the 18th and final ranking event of the 2024‍–‍25 season. It was broadcast domestically by BBC Sport, in Europe by Eurosport, and elsewhere in the world by WST Play and other broadcasters. The winner received £500,000 from a total prize fund of £2,395,000.

The top 16 players from the snooker world rankings—as they stood after the 2025 Tour Championship—were seeded through to the main stage at the Crucible. They were joined by the 16 successful players from the qualifying rounds, which took place from 7 to 16 April at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, featuring 128 professional and invited amateur competitors. A record number of players from China—four seeds and six qualifiers, making ten in total—reached the main stage of the tournament. Crucible debutants at the event were Lei Peifan, Zak Surety, and Daniel Wells. Veteran players Dominic Dale and Joe Perry, who had both played on the professional tour since 1992, retired after their qualifying defeats.

Kyren Wilson was the defending champion, having defeated Jak Jones 18‍–‍14 in the 2024 final to win his maiden world title. He lost 9‍–‍10 to Lei in the first round, becoming the 20th player to experience the so-called Crucible curse, referring to the fact that no first-time champion had retained the title since the tournament moved to the Crucible in 1977. Zhao Xintong, competing as an amateur after serving a 20-month ban, won four qualifying matches to reach the main stage. After beating Ronnie O'Sullivan 17‍–‍7 in the semi-finals, he defeated Mark Williams 18–12 in the final to win his first world title, second Triple Crown title, and third ranking title. He became the first World Champion from China as well as the first from Asia. Zhao was the fourth qualifier to win the world title—after Alex Higgins in 1972, Terry Griffiths in 1979, and Shaun Murphy in 2005—and the first player to win a ranking title while competing as an amateur. Williams, aged 50, was the oldest player to reach the final of the tournament, surpassing Ray Reardon, who had been 49 when he reached the final of the 1982 event. Viewed by an estimated 150 million people in China, the final featured the largest age gap (22 years) between two world finalists; it was also the first world final contested between two left-handed players.

The main stage of the tournament produced 107 century breaks, the third-highest total on record, and the qualifying rounds produced a new record of 143 centuries. Zhao made 18 centuries across the qualifying rounds and main stage combined, equalling the record set by Ding Junhui at the 2016 event. While playing Allan Taylor in the third qualifying round, Jackson Page became the first player to make two maximum breaks in a professional match. He won a £147,000 bonus on offer for making two maximums across that season's Triple Crown events and the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters; he won an additional £10,000 bonus for achieving a maximum in the World Championship qualifiers. Mark Allen made the 15th maximum break in Crucible history during his second-round match against Chris Wakelin, winning a £40,000 bonus. These maximums took the season total to 15, surpassing the previous record of 13. Judd Trump made his 100th century of the season in his second-round match against Murphy, winning a £100,000 bonus; he finished the season with a record 107 centuries, surpassing Neil Robertson's previous record of 103.