[3] In January 2023, the sport's governing body suspended Zhao as part of a match-fixing investigation involving ten Chinese players.

Zhao Xintong first drew international attention in June 2012 at the Zhangjiagang Open defeating high ranking players Xiao Guodong, Irishman Kevin McMahon and Yu Delu to reach the last 16 of the tournament where he narrowly lost 4–3 to Stephen Lee.

As a wildcard entrant he defeated former World Champion Ken Doherty in the International Championship to reach the last 32 of a ranking event for the first time, again narrowly losing in a final frame decider 6–5 to Matthew Stevens.

[16] In 2013, at the International Championship, he beat six-time World Champion Steve Davis 6–1 who later commented: "This boy was astonishingly good and better than anybody I have ever seen at that age - and that includes Ronnie O'Sullivan.

In the second event Zhao got extremely close to qualifying for the main tour managing to reach the final round before losing 4–3 to Duane Jones in a black ball finish in the deciding frame.

He whitewashed Stuart Carrington 6–0 to qualify for the International Championship and, despite losing 6–2 to John Higgins in the first round, his effort of 142 won the high break prize for the event.

[25] He qualified for the German Masters by beating Li Hang 5–3 and John Higgins 5–1 and a 5–0 thrashing of Sunny Akani saw Zhao reach the last 16 of a ranking event for the first time.

Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry, and Alan McManus have all once suggested that Zhao would become a leading player in world snooker due to his enormous potential.

[35][36] At the Masters, he played John Higgins in the first round in a repeat of prior meetings in both the World Grand Prix and the UK Championship, however, he lost 2–6.

In 2022, he reached the final of the 2022 German Masters, having defeated seasoned professionals such as Mark Williams, Tom Ford, the defending champion Judd Trump and Ricky Walden.

There, he met fellow professional and countryman Yan Bingtao, whom he defeated by a whitewash of 9–0 to claim the second ranking title of his career in the space of just two months.

Zhao was suspended in January 2023 by the sport’s governing body as part of a match-fixing investigation involving ten Chinese players.

This confirmation meant that Zhao would be eligible to enter the 2024–25 Q Tour after 1 September 2024, the date that his ban with the WPBSA expired, as well as any other amateur competition that is not sanctioned by the CBSA.

On his run to the trophy, he made another maximum break in his 4–1 quarter-final win over Oliver Sykes, as well as three centuries in defeating Craig Steadman 4–1 in the semi-finals.