2026 World Snooker Championship
The 2026 World Snooker Championship is an upcoming professional snooker tournament that will take place from 18 April to 4 May 2026 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, the 50th consecutive year that the World Snooker Championship will be staged at the venue. Organised by the World Snooker Tour, the tournament will be the 18th and final ranking event of the 2025–26 snooker season.
The top 16 players from the snooker world rankings—as they stand after the 2026 Tour Championship—will be seeded through to the main stage at the Crucible. They will be joined by the 16 successful players from the qualifying rounds, which will take place from 6 to 15 April at the English Institute of Sport in Sheffield, featuring 128 professional and invited amateur competitors.
Zhao Xintong will be the defending champion, having defeated Mark Williams 18–12 in the 2025 final to win his maiden world title. Zhao will be the 21st player to face the so-called Crucible curse, referring to the fact that no first-time champion has retained the title since the tournament moved to the Crucible in 1977.
Background
The inaugural 1927 World Snooker Championship, then known as the Professional Championship of Snooker, took place at various venues in England between November 1926 and May 1927. Joe Davis won the final—held at Camkin's Hall in Birmingham from 9 to 12 May 1927—and went on to win the tournament 15 consecutive times before retiring undefeated after the 1946 edition. The tournament went into abeyance after only two players contested the 1952 edition, due to a dispute between the Professional Billiards Players' Association and the Billiards Association and Control Council. The PBPA established an alternative tournament, the World Professional Championship, of which the six editions held between 1952 and 1957 are retroactively regarded as legitimate continuations of the World Snooker Championship. However, due to waning public interest in snooker during the era, that tournament was also discontinued, and the world title was uncontested between 1958 and 1963.Then-professional player Rex Williams was instrumental in reviving the World Snooker Championship on a challenge basis in 1964. John Pulman, winner of the 1957 World Professional Championship, defended the world title across seven challenge matches between 1964 and 1968. The World Snooker Championship reverted to an annual knockout tournament for the 1969 edition, marking the beginning of the championship's "modern era". The 1977 edition was the first staged at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, where it has remained since. The most successful players in the modern era are Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan, each having won the title seven times. Hendry is the tournament's youngest winner, having captured his first title at the 1990 event, aged. O'Sullivan became the oldest winner when he secured his seventh title at the 2022 event, aged. O'Sullivan, who made his 33rd consecutive appearance at the 2025 event, has featured at the Crucible more times than any other player.
Zhao Xintong will be the defending champion, having defeated Mark Williams 1812 in the 2025 final to win his first world title.