Sawt Falasteen - Murphy warns snooker hopefuls to 'work harder' to match Chinese stars

Murphy lost a last-frame decider to China's Wu Yize in the World Championship final at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre on Monday.

The 22-year-old's dramatic 18-17 victory gave China a second consecutive world champion following compatriot Zhao Xintong's 2025 triumph in a sport traditionally dominated by players from Britain and Ireland.

But while 2005 world champion Murphy, 43, and fellow British snooker stars such as Ronnie O'Sullivan (50) and John Higgins (51 later this month), remain competitive at relatively advanced ages, doubts have been expressed about their younger compatriots.

Wu, the second-youngest world champion after Stephen Hendry, arrived in the UK as a 16-year-old and shared a bed in a windowless flat in his early days trying to make it as a professional snooker player.

"You hear the stories about Wu Yize coming over here with his family, living in a room without any windows, and I think some British players could take a leaf out of their book and thinking, that if they think they're working hard, they're probably not," said Murphy.

"But talent does nothing without hard work and you must give all the players from China absolute credit for the amount of graft and hard work they put in."

Chinese players won seven of this year's 18 ranking tournaments and February's World Grand Prix in Hong Kong was the first time where all four semi-finalists at such a high-level event were from China.

Wu has now moved up to fourth in the end-of-season rankings –- one place behind Zhao -- and they are also two out of of 23 Chinese players who finished the campaign in the world's top 100.

"You can see with the investment that the Chinese government have made into snooker in the last 10, 15 years the fruits of it now -- Xintong last year, Wu this year -- it's great for snooker out in China and it would be great to see that kind of investment here," said Murphy.

"It's about your time and Wu Yize's time was this week. I have nothing but admiration for him and his style of play and the way he goes about it."

J.AbuShaban--SF-PST