Bai Yulu successfully defended the World Women’s Snooker Championship after beating Mink Nutcharut 6-4 in Tuesday’s final.
In a repeat of last year’s title-deciding affair, Bai overturned a 4-2 deficit to edge the women’s world number one in a tight tussle.
The 2025 final at the Changping Gymnasium in Dongguan pitted the top two seeds against each other.
Both players dominated their initial round-robin groups with one hundred percent records to safely advance to the knockout phase of the competition.
Bai subsequently reached the semi-finals with victories over Liu Ziling, Panchaya Channoi, and a standout 4-2 success over three-time world champion Ng On Yee in the quarter-finals.
Nutcharut reached the last four with triumphs over Li Enmiaoer, Deng Xinshun, and Anupama Ramachandran.
The two favourites for the title then coasted through to the final with respective defeats of Xia Yuying, who had stunned Reanne Evans in the last 16, and Baipat Siripaporn.
Bai, who pipped Nutcharut in a 6-5 thriller to capture her maiden world crown a year ago, won the opening frame of the final showdown on the black.
But the 21 year-old duly lost four out of the next five frames to trail by a couple heading into the back end of the contest.
Nutcharut, hoping to add to her sole success at the World Women’s Snooker Championship from 2022, had several opportunities to move closer to the winning line.
But in a mostly scrappy and cagey affair, Bai was ultimately able to hold herself together when it mattered the most.
The Chinese competitor, who won three matches in the UK Championship qualifiers last year on the main tour, won three frames on the spin to move 5-4 in front.
A chaotic tenth frame ensued, with 25 year-old Nutcharut going in-off after potting the final pink and Bai then sinking the same ball to clinch the prestigious title for a second time.
With many heralding Bai Yulu as the most talented prospect the women’s game has ever seen, she becomes the first player since Ng in 2018 to mount a successful defence.
The World Women’s Snooker Championship final was played in front of a big crowd for the second year in a row in China, signalling the tournament’s continued growth.
The match also boasted a large number of viewers on the official WPBSA YouTube channel.
2025 World Women’s Snooker Championship
Selected Results
Last 16
Mink Nutcharut 4-2 Deng Xinshun
Anupama Ramachandran 4-1 Jessica Woods
Rebecca Kenna 4-2 Natucha Phoemphul
Baipat Siripaporn 4-1 Zhao Lu
Ng On Yee 4-1 Ho Yee Ki
Bai Yulu 4-2 Panchaya Channoi
Amee Kamani 4-2 Narantuya Bayarsaikhan
Xia Yuying 4-1 Reanne Evans
Quarter-Finals
Mink Nutcharut 4-0 Anupama Ramachandran
Baipat Siripaporn 4-2 Rebecca Kenna
Bai Yulu 4-2 Ng On Yee
Xia Yuying 4-1 Amee Kamani
Semi-Finals
Mink Nutcharut 5-1 Baipat Siripaporn
Bai Yulu 5-0 Xia Yuying
Final
Bai Yulu 6-4 Mink Nutcharut
Featured photo credit: WWS
Bai Yulu certainly outshone all the others and deservedly won; once again outscoring her opponents.
The women’s world championship this year coincidentally seemed to repeat the pattern of the main world championship with the best matches being mostly in the quarter finals.
I think that Reanne Evans will be in line for a main tour card derived from her women’s tour ranking position again, along with Hong Kongs Ng On Yee, who was her co-recipient of the first pair of annual women’s qualifying cards.
For Bai Yulu though, it surely now has to be all about her performance on the main tour, plus a defence of her title in her homeland in 12 months. She plays like her idol, including stance, cueing action, and I think that it even extends to facial expressions and body language at times! Imitation is the greatest form of flattery so the saying goes, so Stephen Hendry must be very flattered. An exhibition between the two of them would be remarkable to see.
Bai Yulu is going through a transition, after first appearing on the WWS 2 years ago, when she was scoring centuries. But her life has changed considerably, and she’s having to get used to the WST. In a year or two she could dominate the women’s game and start to be competitive on the WST, although it’s probably always going to be complicated to keep switching between the different tours.
I was there for the last 3 days, commuting from Shenzhen (about 30 minutes by train). Once again, it was a magnificent event, although the quality of the later matches wasn’t as good as last year. There were more players, although not so many had been able to travel from Europe. There were some younger players who impressed me, which is important as the lack of depth is the biggest issue in the women’s game.
The crowd was enthusiastic, and the final roughly matched the size of last year, despite being on a Tuesday and costing CNY58 (about £6). I suspect the Huya stream attracted most online viewers in China, but the YouTube stream had decent numbers throughout.
Hi Lewis. Unrelated but I’ve just messaged you on FB messenger. Apologies for curious message via this medium!
I still would like to see greater scoring from the top players. That’s the only way any of them will be able to start winning more matches on the Main Tour.
Overall scoring levels are an issue; I think that is the crux of why there still is a women’s tour to grow ATM. I’d assume that eventually the top talent would consistently leave for the main tour and eventually the tour would be seen as a derelict due to it being unnecessary. Until the top talents can consistently ‘fly the nest’ the tour will be wanting to grow it’s base. Eventually there would be a tipping point where are competitive women follow the best immediately to the main tour. In a way, taken at face value, the success of women’s snooker ‘in the round’ should result in the failure of the women’s tour: growth to irrelevance. The scoring levels don’t suggest to me that that is anywhere near being approached yet.
I’m not sure there was a century during this year’s edition. I agree we’re a long way from the Women’s Tour being redundant.
Bai is the seventh player to win the event multiple times. Reanne Evans still leads with 12, followed by Alison Fisher on 7.
There were two centuries, but in the earlier rounds. I expected more, but it seemed like the conditions weren’t helpful this year.
There will probably always be events for women only, and a Women’s World Championship. But at some point in the future the concept of a ‘Women’s Tour’ might become questionable. In any case, my argument is for deregulation, so any concept of a ‘Tour’ is questionable, including WST. We can just have events, worldwide, that players can enter. They shouldn’t be forced to sign any kind of exclusive contract.
What was notable this time was the huge number of players from Thailand, and to a lesser degree Mongolia. The interest is there and there seems to be enough financial support to make the trip, within Asia at least.