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." He went on to reach the third round of the competition before losing 6–2 to Marco Fu, however he would go on to avenge this loss by defeating Fu in the first round of the 2014 Shanghai Masters. Zhao entered the World Amateur Championship in late 2013 reaching the final, however he lost to his fellow countryman Zhou Yuelong 8–4 and thus missed out on a chance to join the world snooker main tour for the 2014–15 season.