Sports Personality of the Year 2025 LIVE: Watch TV stream and follow text – winners & vote updates
‘Magician Murphy ends Masters wait’published at 20:49 GMT
Steve Sutcliffe
BBC Sport snooker reporter
Image source, Getty Images
What a year 2025 has been.
It began with ‘The Magician’ winning the Masters, as Shaun
Murphy ended a 10-year wait to triumph in a prestigious Triple Crown event.
And it ended, as far as snooker’s big three tournaments are concerned, with the ‘Jester from Leicester’, Mark
Selby, claiming his third UK Championship title and underlining his status as
one of the game’s greatest ever players.
In between, Zhao Xintong announced himself as the sport’s
new mega star as he made history by becoming the first player from Asia to conquer
the Crucible.
His World Championship success was all the more extraordinary given he was suspended
from the sport for 20 months, with his
burgeoning career abruptly halted when he was one of 10 Chinese players
sanctioned in 2023 following an
investigation into match-fixing.
All of this has come while Englishman Judd Trump has reigned
supreme at the top of the world rankings.
But what of the ‘Class of 92’? Snooker’s celebrated trio Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams, are still going strong and still pulling in the crowds.
Arguably the greatest player ever, O’Sullivan, who recently turned 50, reached the last four
in Sheffield despite trialling new cues and not playing competitively for several months.
A rejuvenated Higgins won his first title in four years
at the World Open and then tasted success at the Tour Championship, while Williams’ well-documented eyesight issues did not prevent him from winning the Xi’an Grand Prix
in October.
