2026 World Snooker Championship: Can Zhao Xintong defend his title?

By Deniss Novickis | Published: April 17, 2026, 08:00

It’s the middle of April, and all snooker geeks have THAT feeling again, as there are 17 days of drama, stunning clearances, amazing safeties, and unbelievable flukes lying ahead. Zhao Xintong is the defending champion, returning to the Crucible to defend his title. Unfortunately, we can’t back him at 15.00, like we did last year. Still, with the World Championship on the horizon, we will surely find some other valuable long-term betting opportunities.

In the sections below, we will examine the leading contenders, review their form over the past few months, and analyse the odds for winning the World Championship. We’ll conclude with a World Snooker Championship winner prediction and highlight several other valuable long-term bets.

The defending champion, Zhao Xintong, is the red-hot favourite thanks to his sensational form at the 2026 Tour Championship. The Chinese player won this tournament with ease, defeating John Higgins 10-1 in the semis and beating Judd Trump 10-3 in the final.

Trump comes next, as the second seed sits at 5.50, while Ronnie O’Sullivan is third, at 6.00. Former world champions Mark Selby (8.00) and Kyren Wilson (12.00) complete the top 5. The table below shows the top nine contenders along with their odds of winning the title.

Below, we’ll examine each of the top five favourites, breaking down their performances during this season and assessing their chances of going all the way based on the draw.

Zhao Xintong

Zhao endured a dreadful opening to the 2025/26 campaign. However, his form soon began to improve, with three semi-final appearances, before a breakthrough in mid-November when Zhao captured the non-ranking Riyadh Season Snooker Championship. Building on this momentum, the defending world champion went on to win the World Grand Prix, the Players Championship, and the Tour Championship in 2026.

If Zhao shows the same form and composure he did at the latter tournament in Manchester, he is pretty much unbeatable. However, we shouldn’t forget about the Crucible Curse - no first-time world champion has ever successfully defended his title here. Zhao got a favourable draw in the first round, playing against Liam Highfield. It will likely be David Gilbert and Shaun Murphy on the way to the semis. All in all, the top half of the draw looks weaker than the bottom one, and Zhao is the top favourite for a reason.

Judd Trump

Trump remains the world number one, but this season was far from his best with a single triumph at the German Masters. He also reached four finals and four semi-finals, which is still not good enough compared to his highest standards. At one point, the Ace in the Pack clearly lacked confidence, but he played pretty well at the Tour Championship, albeit with the staggering defeat to Zhao in the final.

It’s been 3 years since Judd Trump played this outrageous positional shot 😎 pic.twitter.com/ojxINkrYGP

— I ❤️ Snooker (@ILoveSnooker_) March 27, 2026

Trump got, arguably, the toughest draw of all the seeds - he will face Gary Wilson, who was a top 16 player not that long ago. In 2019, Trump defeated Wilson 17-11 in the semi-finals on the way to his only world title. While he shouldn’t have many problems in the second round, it’s either Mark Selby or Wu Yize in the quarter-finals. The draw is definitely not in favour of Trump, and his form this season was shaky. This is not the best bet to make on the outright, especially at such low odds.

Ronnie O’Sullivan

Next comes the GOAT of the sport, the most celebrated snooker player ever, Ronnie O’Sullivan. Once again, despite all the hate we might receive, one thing must be underlined - the Rocket is not the player he once was. You have to practice to succeed in this game, and we really doubt that Ronnie has put in the hours. He decided to miss 13 (!) tournaments this season, and his best achievements were the finals of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters and the World Open.

Being a “mood” player nowadays, Ronnie can beat anyone on his day. However, we doubt you want to risk your hard-earned cash on a player who can throw it all away just because he didn’t like a referee’s decision or someone in the crowd. This tournament is a marathon, and winning five tough matches in a row might be too much for the Rocket. He starts against a debutant, He Guoquiang, but it’s John Higgins or Ali Carter next, with a quarter-final showdown versus Neil Robertson looming.

Mark Selby

Selby has enjoyed a strong first half of the campaign, claiming titles at the Champion of Champions and the UK Championship, defeating Judd Trump in both finals. He also made semi-final runs at the English Open and the British Open. Selby is one of just three players to win multiple tournaments this season, alongside Zhao Xintong and Kyren Wilson. However, his results in 2026 were well below par.

The first and only 147 maximum break made in a World Championship final.

Mark Selby made this brilliant 147 break at the 2023 World Championship final against Luca Brecel 💪 pic.twitter.com/eHGgeIa5RU

— I ❤️ Snooker (@ILoveSnooker_) April 13, 2026

The Jester from Leicester, a four-time world champion, always shows his best snooker at the Crucible. That said, he is another seed to get a very tough draw in Jak Jones, a finalist here in 2024. It won’t get any easier in the second round, where he’ll likely meet the sensational Wu Yize. The potential quarter-final battle with Trump doesn’t look promising either, even though Selby has beaten him in all three ranking matches this season.

Kyren Wilson

Wilson, the world champion in 2024, started the season by winning the non-ranking Shanghai Masters in August. However, he didn’t have a single semi-final to his name until January, when he triumphed at the Masters, another non-ranking event. Still number 2 in the world, the Warrior would love to forget this campaign, which was a huge disappointment due to numerous early exits. With just three ranking quarter-finals in 2025/26, only a deep run in Sheffield can make this campaign decent.

Wilson will play Stan Moody, another debutant, in the first round. He already lost to the 19-year-old this season - a 4-2 defeat in the Last 64 of the British Open. That said, Wilson has the easiest quarter of the top four seeds, so reaching the semi-finals is a very realistic outcome. We suppose this is the best option among the top 5 seeds to win the tournament in terms of odds-probability ratio.

1. First and foremost, the unseeded players have a very big advantage in match form. All of them played at least two best-of-19 qualifying matches against decent opposition this week to get to the Crucible. On the contrary, five of the seeds - Wilson, Xiao Guodong, O’Sullivan, Si Jiahui, and Ding Junhui - played their last competitive match more than a month ago. All other seeds haven’t had a competitive match for more than two weeks.

1. There are three debutants in the tournament - Moody, Liam Pullen and Antoni Kowalski. While all three are very talented young players, competing at the Crucible can’t be compared with any other event. Nerves will come into play, and all three are likely to go out in the very first round, possibly losing by a big margin.

1. Finally, past head-to-head matches are very important. For example, O’Sullivan defeated Carter, whom he might meet in the second round, in 17 out of 19 previous ranking matches. These statistics might help when you’re not sure of who’ll be the winner in any match.

Zhao Xintong (1) - Liam Highfield 10-5
Ding Junhui (16) - David Gilbert 8-10
Xiao Guodong (9) - Zhou Yuelong 8-10
Shaun Murphy (8) - Fan Zhengyi 10-7

John Higgins (5) - Ali Carter 10-9
Ronnie O’Sullivan (12) - He Guoqiang 10-5
Chris Wakelin (13) - Liam Pullen 8-10
Neil Robertson (4) - Pang Junxu 10-7

Kyren Wilson (3) - Stan Moody 10-8
Mark Allen (14) - Zhang Anda 8-10
Barry Hawkins (11) - Matthew Stevens 10-6
Mark Williams (6) - Antoni Kowalski 10-5

Mark Selby (7) - Jak Jones 10-9
Wu Yize (10) - Lei Peifan 10-6
Si Jiahui (15) - Hossein Vafaei 8-10
Judd Trump (2) - Gary Wilson 10-7

After analysing the draw, the odds, and the form of the players, we are going with Shaun Murphy at 15.00. The 2005 world champion, who has lost three finals since, showed some of his best snooker in the middle of the season. He is an excellent break builder with great long pots, and he is used to the pressure. Murphy is surrounded by Chinese players in the top quarter of the draw, but he should go through to the quarter-finals. Zhao Xintong will likely wait for him there, but never forget the Crucible Curse.

Still can’t believe how Shaun Murphy imagined and executed this shot!

Shot of the decade imo 😎 pic.twitter.com/h5zsCagobl

— I ❤️ Snooker (@ILoveSnooker_) March 22, 2026

Just like we said above, Wilson has the easiest path to the semi-finals among the top seeds. The first round match against Moody might be the toughest hurdle in his path, and the odds of 2.62 look very tempting.

There’s definitely value in betting a century break scored in every match at 4.50. This one is risky, but here’s the logic behind the bet. We have the top 32 players in the world, playing long matches with at least 10 frames (if it’s a whitewash). All of the players are top-class and will do their best to please the crowd. From my 20 years of snooker experience, if this bet is alive after the first round, it is destined to hit.

After analysing the draw, I can’t see a pair that won’t be able to make a century, and there won’t be 10-0 victories either. The matches will become longer after the first round, and the chances of a century break will go up too. It’s up to you to decide whether you risk it, but this one is a sure bet from my side.

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