| Tournament information | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 23 November – 5 December 2021 |
| Venue | York Barbican |
| City | York |
| Country | England |
| Organisation | World Snooker Tour |
| Format | Ranking event |
| Total prize fund | £1,009,000 |
| Winner's share | £200,000 |
| Highest break |  Gary Wilson (ENG) (147) |
| Final | |
| Champion |  Zhao Xintong (CHN) |
| Runner-up |  Luca Brecel (BEL) |
| Score | 10–5 |
← 2020 2022 → | |
The 2021 UK Championship (officially the 2021 Cazoo UK Championship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 23 November to 5 December 2021 at the York Barbican, in York, England. The event was the first Triple Crown and fifth ranking event of the 2021–22 snooker season. The tournament featured a prize fund of £1,009,000, with the winner receiving £200,000. It was sponsored by car retail company Cazoo and broadcast in the UK by the BBC and Eurosport.
Neil Robertson was the defending champion, having defeated Judd Trump 10–9 in the 2020 final, but he lost 2–6 in the first round to amateur John Astley. Many other top seeds exited the tournament in the early rounds, with 11 of the world's top 13 ranked players eliminated before the last-16 stage. For the first time in the tournament's history, no top-16 player reached the final, which was contested between China's Zhao Xintong and Belgium's Luca Brecel, both of whom made their first appearances in a Triple Crown final. Zhao won the event with a 10–5 victory in the final to claim his first ranking title. The event featured 119 century breaks, with Gary Wilson making the highest, his fourth career maximum break, in his first-round match against Ian Burns.
Aged 24, Zhao became the youngest winner of the UK Championship since Trump in 2011. He became the fourth non-British winner in the tournament's history, after Ireland's Patsy Fagan, China's Ding Junhui, and Australia's Robertson. He also became the fourth player from mainland China to win a ranking title, after Ding, Liang Wenbo and Yan Bingtao. His win enabled him to enter the top 16 for the first time and secure a place in the second Triple Crown event of the season, the 2022 Masters.