Mark Williams thrashed Shaun Murphy 10-3 to win the 2025 Xi’an Grand Prix on Monday on the Qujiang Athletic Middle.
In doing so, the Welshman turns into the oldest-ever rating occasion winner in snooker – aged 50 years and 206 days.
Williams breaks a World Snooker Tour file that stood since 1982 when his countryman Ray Reardon prevailed in that 12 months’s Skilled Gamers Match on the age of fifty years and 14 days.
It’s the newest chapter in a outstanding skilled profession that started all the way in which again in 1992 when he graduated to the primary tour alongside contemporaries Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins.
All three are nonetheless competing on the very highest stage, profitable prestigious titles and repeatedly including their names to the historical past books.
Because the eldest of the three, Williams was most likely the more than likely to eclipse the oldest champion feat set by Reardon.
He already got here near attaining it on the World Championship in Could when he reached the ultimate solely to be denied a fourth world crown by Zhao Xintong.
Williams then started this season solidly with a string of runs to the quarters and semis of tournaments, and he rejoins the highest 4 on the planet rankings record after choosing up the £177,000 prime prize right here.
Opponent Murphy, chasing back-to-back rating titles after his triumph on the British Open final month, had really been the large favorite heading into the Xi’an Grand Prix last.
The Magician was in terrific type all week, notably within the scoring division the place he nearly received in on the record-breaking motion himself in his 5-0 destruction of reigning champion Kyren Wilson within the final 16.
Murphy compiled ten tons en path to the title-deciding affair and was extremely fancied to beat a participant who had not often produced his finest.
Williams, in contrast, had superior to the ultimate by means of grit and willpower fairly than by expressing any diploma of his normal type.
However all the good champions over time have had a bent to avoid wasting their finest stuff for the very finish when it issues essentially the most, and that was definitely the case right here.
Williams started the showdown for glory in assured vogue with breaks of 75 and 73 serving to him to construct an early 2-0 cushion.
Regardless that it was nonetheless early on in a race to 10, the match had seemingly already received away from Murphy when he squandered two golden alternatives within the third and fourth frames to get on the scoreboard, as an alternative drifting 4-0 down.
The 43 year-old finally managed to get off the mark within the fifth, however Williams reeled off the next three, together with with a break of 127, to finish the primary session 7-1 in entrance.
A superb 122 contribution to open the night’s bout of play subsequently prolonged his result in seven frames.
Murphy put some respectability to the scoreline by taking the following two frames, however when Williams took the final body earlier than the mid-session interval, the sport was all however up.
The three-time world champion wanted a few bites of the cherry within the thirteenth body however duly wrapped up the one-sided success to acclaim from the group.
Defeat for Murphy will undoubtedly carry disappointment, however his current performances have seen him rejoin the highest 10 of the world rankings in ninth place.
That, the truth is, is essential because it has sealed his invitation to November’s Riyadh Season Snooker Championship in Saudi Arabia.
The person of the second, although, is Williams who regardless of his fixed quips of self-deprecation stays one of many sport’s elite opponents into his fifties.
His record-breaking victory additionally represents his twenty seventh in a rating occasion, taking him into sixth on his personal on the all-time record forward of Neil Robertson.
2025 Xi’an Grand Prix
Spherical of 32 (bo9)
Kyren Wilson 5-2 Yuan Sijun
Shaun Murphy 5-4 Wu Yize
Elliot Slessor 4-5 Oliver Traces
Louis Heathcote 3-5 Ding Junhui
Ronnie O’Sullivan 5-0 Stephen Maguire
David Lilley 3-5 Jak Jones
Gary Wilson 5-4 Mateusz Baranowski
He Guoqiang 5-4 Neil Robertson
Matthew Stevens 4-5 Lyu Haotian
Stan Moody 0-5 Stuart Bingham
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 2-5 Barry Hawkins
Zhou Yuelong 2-5 Mark Williams
Liam Pullen 5-0 Noppon Saengkham
Mark Davis 1-5 Aaron Hill
Daniel Wells 5-3 Si Jiahui
Jimmy Robertson 4-5 Robert Milkins
Spherical of 16 (bo9)
Kyren Wilson 0-5 Shaun Murphy
Oliver Traces 1-5 Ding Junhui
Ronnie O’Sullivan 5-2 Jak Jones
Gary Wilson 5-0 He Guoqiang
Lyu Haotian 5-3 Stuart Bingham
Barry Hawkins 4-5 Mark Williams
Liam Pullen 5-1 Aaron Hill
Daniel Wells 5-2 Robert Milkins
Quarter-Finals (bo9)
Shaun Murphy 5-3 Ding Junhui
Ronnie O’Sullivan 2-5 Gary Wilson
Lyu Haotian 4-5 Mark Williams
Liam Pullen 2-5 Daniel Wells
Semi-Closing (bo11)
Shaun Murphy 6-4 Gary Wilson
Mark Williams 6-3 Daniel Wells
Closing (bo19)
Shaun Murphy 3-10 Mark Williams
Click on right here for the up to date draw and outcomes (snooker.org)
Featured picture credit score: WST
