Wu Yijie
This was not the only peculiarity of the championship that ended late in the evening of May 4. Previously, the world champion has been determined in the decisive 35th frame only four times in history (since 1977).
In addition, Wu Yijie repeated the success of his compatriot Zhao Xintong, who won the title last year. And he became the second Chinese representative to win this prestigious tournament. Moreover, never before had a non-British snooker player won the World Championship two years in a row.
Wu Yijie also became the second youngest world champion in history after Stephen Hendry of Scotland, who won the tournament in 1990 at the age of 21.
Another unique fact is that the native of Lanzhou, China, became the fourth consecutive winner of the World Championship, starting it as a debutant. Before that, such achievements were noted by Belgian Luca Brecel, Englishman Kyren Wilson and Chinese Zhao Xintong. Thus they refute the conventional wisdom that in snooker you have to have a lot of tournament experience to win big.
In a way, the 2005 World Champion Murphy also enriched the championship statistics with an interesting fact. After winning the tournament, the 43-year-old Englishman reached the World Championship final four more times – in 2009, 2015, 2021 and 2026. But each time something was missing for the victory.
