Zhang Zhong finished second at the World Junior Chess Championship twice, in 1996 and 1998.

[3] Zhang Zhong was clear first with a score of 11/13 at the Corus B tournament in Wijk aan Zee in 2003, three points ahead of his nearest rival.

This result qualified him for the prestigious main Corus A tournament in 2004, in which he scored 5/13.

He won the 2005 Asian Chess Championship to qualify for the FIDE World Cup held that year, where he beat Mikhail Kobalia in the first round, but lost to Ivan Sokolov in the second.

[5] In 2014, he tied for 1st–3rd with Nguyễn Ngọc Trường Sơn and Lê Quang Liêm, placing second on tiebreak, at the 4th HDBank Cup in Ho Chi Minh City,[6] and won the 11th IGB Dato' Athur Tan Malaysia Open in Kuala Lumpur.