Who will be the next multiple World Snooker Championship winner? Judd Trump, Kyren Wilson, Zhao Xintong among top contenders at Crucible

Steve Davis, Stephen Hendry, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Williams, John Higgins and Mark Selby occupy an elite status as multiple champions in the Sheffield era.

Breaking into this pantheon is clearly tough. Winning the tournament is like climbing a mental marathon and can affect players in different ways.

New world champions are subject to constant demands on their time. Though this often means lucrative endorsements and events, it can take the focus away from the business of playing.

Others struggle to adjust to their new elevated position and the increased expectations it brings. Just this week, Luca Brecel, champion only three years ago, found himself back in the qualifiers and has failed to make it through to the final stages.

It takes a tough character to win the world title but an even tougher one to go back to the well and find more success.

So who is the most likely player to become the next multiple world champion?

There are five main contenders: Judd Trump, Kyren Wilson, Shaun Murphy, Neil Robertson, and this year’s defending champion, Zhao Xintong.

Trump’s performance to win the 2019 title ranks as perhaps the best ever in a World Championship final. He made seven centuries in demolishing Higgins and the next season won a record six ranking titles, suggesting more Crucible glory would follow.

In fact, he has reached the one-table stage only twice since, losing to O’Sullivan in the 2022 final and Williams in the semis 12 months ago.

Trump could take some solace from the career of Higgins, who beat him in his first world final in 2011. The Scot became champion in 1998 but it took him nine years to claim his second title before winning two more in quick succession.

In previous seasons, Trump has been so successful that he may have arrived in Sheffield a little burned out, so a quieter 2025/26 campaign could ultimately be a positive when it comes to the game’s biggest event.

There is still a burden of expectation on him, though, as world No. 1, to be more successful in snooker’s showpiece. That pressure will only grow if he goes another year without winning it.

Wilson had long believed he would become world champion before he won the title in 2024.

Last year, he made light of the Crucible Curse before succumbing to it on the opening day, losing 10-9 to Lei Peifan to become the latest first-time winner to fall 12 months on.

Wilson has the mentality and toughness in his game to slog through another 17-day marathon even if he’s not at his best all the way through.

This season, he won the Shanghai Masters and the Masters in London but has struggled in ranking events. This may ultimately prove a positive in terms of being fresh for Sheffield, just as he was two years ago after a low-key campaign.

It’s now 21 years since Murphy shocked the snooker world by winning the title as a 22 year-old qualifier. It is maybe overlooked that he has been in three world finals since.

Murphy’s game is built around his devastating attacking game, but if it isn’t firing he can be vulnerable. However, he is working with Peter Ebdon, the 2002 champion, who has instilled some steeliness into his preparation.

Ebdon was one of snooker’s hard men and expects nothing less than full commitment. The fruits of that mindset were evident when Murphy won the Masters last year and, having given up his media work during the tournament, he will be giving the playing side his full focus in Sheffield.

Robertson is one of the great Crucible enigmas. He won the title in 2010 but has reached just one semi-final since, back in 2014, despite a formidable record of success elsewhere.

At some point, the Australian seems to have developed a mental block playing at the Crucible. The tightness of the arena is not to his liking – but it’s the same dimensions as when he was crowned champion 16 years ago.

At times, his aggressive game has given way to a more studied approach as Robertson has been dragged into playing a type of snooker which doesn’t suit him. If he can free himself of these shackles and stay on the front foot throughout the long matches to come then he is still a major contender.

However, right now the most likely player to join the greats as a multiple world champion is Zhao, who recently won all three titles in the Players Series.

He has quickly developed the same intimidation factor associated with prime Davis, Hendry, and O’Sullivan, who often had opponents beaten before a ball had been potted.

The apparently effortless way in which he dispatches frames is frightening for those trying to stop him and his laid-back manner conceals a fierce competitiveness: this season he has won the most deciding frames of anyone on tour.

Zhao has the fabled Crucible Curse to deal with, but that is largely in the mind, and he doesn’t seem the type to be lying awake at night fretting about it.

There is a sense that his time is now, that the stars have aligned and a new era is beginning.

This theory will swiftly go out of the window if Zhao suffers an early exit. However, if he can defy history and claim back-to-back titles, then there is surely no stopping him winning several more.

To become a multiple world champion is to become a true great. That is how high the stakes are, and it also explains why the group of players to have achieved this feat is so small.

But there is surely space for at least one more member of the Crucible’s ultimate VIP room.

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