Mark Williams makes snooker history by breaking long-time record with Xi’an Grand Prix win

Mark Williams broke a snooker record that had stood for 43 years as he won the Xi’an Grand Prix in style.

Williams downed Shaun Murphy 10-3 in the final to claim a 27th ranking title of his storied career and, aged 50 years and 206 days, became the oldest man in snooker history to win one.

The three-time world champion beat the long-standing record of fellow Welsh icon Ray Reardon – who passed away last year – set way back in 1982, who won the Professional Players Tournament a fortnight after his 50th birthday.

In addition to surpassing Reardon’s feat, Williams also became the first man to lift a ranking title in every decade from his teens through to his 50s, to highlight his remarkable longevity at the highest level.

He took Murphy apart in the first eight frames of the final, building an almost unassailable 7-1 lead with breaks of 75, 73 and 68 the highlight before rounding out the opening session with a magnificent run of 127.

He followed that up with another century – a 122 – in the first frame of the evening session and although Murphy added a veneer of respectability to the scoreline by taking the 10th and 11th frames, Williams immediately quelled any suggestion of a remarkable comeback as with breaks of 65 and 61 to secure an easy victory and the £177,000 winner’s cheque, which moves him above Ronnie O’Sullivan into fourth spot in the world rankings.

Williams had addressed the potential of breaking Reardon’s record as the oldest ranking event winner following a scrappy 6-3 semi-final victory over Daniel Wells and was typically deadpan in his response – suggesting long-time rivals John Higgins and O’Sullivan, who are two months and nine months younger than him respectively, would soon surpass him.

“Being the oldest at something, it’s not really a record is it?,” said Williams after downing Wells. “I suppose if I take it, Ronnie or John Higgins will beat it in a few months’ time.

“It’s just nice to be in a final, and to win a tournament would be great. At the start of this week if you had offered me the quarter-finals I would have bitten your hand off, so for the final I would have bitten your whole body off.”

His performance in the final was a marked improvement on his win over Wells and ensured a first trophy since the Tour Championship in April 2024, although he did reach the World Championship final in May this year before losing 18-12 to China’s first world champion, Zhao Xintong.