A talented Chinese snooker player still has more than two years to serve on a suspension handed out for his involvement in the match-fixing scandal that rocked the sport
A snooker star who beat three world champions on the way to winning a major title is barred from playing again until 2027. Yan Bingtao was one of 10 Chinese players to receive bans in June 2023 as part of the match-fixing scandal that rocked the sport.
The suspensions ranged from one new world champion Zhao Xintong’s one year and eight months, all the way up to lifetime bans for Liang Wenbo and Li Hang, the ring leaders of the operation, who were found guilty of a string of charges, including fixing matches and facilitating and coercing other players to fix matches
Of the eight other players, five are still serving their bans, including Yan Bingtao, who was suspended for five years for fixing four matches and betting on the outcome of several others between 2016 and 2022. His initial ban of seven years and six months was reduced for early admissions and a guilty plea.
His involvement in the scandal halted a promising career that had already seen him land one of the sport’s biggest prizes, the Masters in 2021. Played behind closed doors in Milton Keynes due to the pandemic, Yan beat three world champions – Neil Robertson, Stuart Bingham, and John Higgins in the final – to win the £250,000 top prize.
He became just the second Chinese player to win the tournament after Ding Junhui in 2011. Yan, then 20, was also the youngest player to win the prestigious invitational event since Ronnie O’Sullivan in 1995.
Yan impressed at the 2022 World Championship, where he knocked out four-time Crucible king Mark Selby in the second round before narrowly losing 13-11 to Mark Williams in the quarter-finals. As his ban will not be completed until December 2027, the earliest Yan, 25, could realistically return to the World Snooker Tour is for the 2028/29 season.
Along with Zhao, two other players are now free to resume their careers. Chang Bingyu, whose ban ended in December last year, will be back on the professional tour next season after winning the Asia-Pacific Championship. Meanwhile, Zhao Jianbo completed his suspension last month.
After serving his punishment, Zhao is now the toast of snooker and a national hero after completing a 17-12 victory over Williams in the Crucible final. Referencing his ban that expired in September, Zhao said: “I had nearly two years not playing in tour competitions and that’s why I said my first target was to get through qualifying to the Crucible. I can’t believe I went on to be champion, but I am back now and I want to keep going.”
Zhao’s win over Williams was his ninth of the tournament – a record for any champion – and his 47th in 49 matches since he embarked on his comeback with a 3-0 whitewash of Lithuanian Vilius Schulte-Ebbert in the inauspicious surroundings of a Q Tour event in Sofia in September.
