Zhao Xintong reacts to being told he'll outdo Ronnie O'Sullivan and Stephen Hendry

smiled when told he could become the richest player in the history of snooker - even richer than who has banked nearly £15million in prize money. The 28-year-old enjoyed the biggest moment of his career by winning the at the Crucible on Monday night, beating Mark Williams 18-12 to become the first ever Asian world champion.

Zhao is the first ever amateur to win the event although he is only an amateur because of a 20-month ban from the sport that came from an investigation into match-fixing. The Xi'an native was not guilty of throwing a match himself but accepted charges of being party to another player fixing matches and also betting on his own matches.

Despite such a lengthy suspension, he was still one of the pre-tournament favourites, such is his quality. He now climbs to 11th in the world rankings and the chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, Jason Ferguson, has tipped Zhao for massive things in the future.

"I think Xintong has the potential to become the richest-earning snooker player in the history of the sport," Ferguson said. "That's quite a bold statement when you think about the titles players like Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan won.

"But the size of the market is huge and when you see the association of the brands who want to partner with snooker, it has endless potential."

That statement was put to Zhao by , and his response was to smile and say: "I've never thought about that. Seriously, I just want to keep going and win the snooker trophies. It's more important."

Zhao had to qualify for the World Championship, beating four opponents before seeing off Jak Jones, compatriot Lei Peifan, Chris Wakelin, his idol and seven-time world champion Ronnie O'Sullivan and Mark Williams - a three-time winner of the tournament - to win £500,000 in Sheffield.

He added: "I can feel that my life is about to change. It changed a little after I won the UK Championship [in 2021] but I think this is very different because the World Championship is the most important one.

"No Asian person has done this before. It's a huge moment for my career. I'm proud of myself and I think I have given power and confidence to Chinese people that they can do this."

In order to outdo O'Sullivan and Hendry financially, Zhao will likely need to win more World Championships given the event's huge prize offering.

In 2026, he'll bid to become the first ever to overcome the famous Crucible curse. The curse has prevented the previous 20 first-time world champions from retaining their title the following year.