Bai Yulu added more silverware to her growing collection with a dominant victory at the 2025 Women’s Snooker Open in Bangkok on Thursday.
The Chinese star beat Ng On Yee 5-1 in the final at the Hi-End Snooker Club, recording breaks of 83, 81, and 52 to defeat her opponent from Hong Kong.
In what was the inaugural staging of the new event on the World Women’s Snooker Tour, Bai pocketed a top prize worth £6,000.
It brings her rapidly escalating tally of ranking titles to six, and it marks her second of the 2025/26 campaign following her earlier success at the UK Women’s Championship in August where she also beat Ng in the final.
Bai reached this showdown for glory by first qualifying for the knockout phase of the competition with a perfect record of four wins from four in the initial round-robin stage.
A 3-1 defeat of Ho Yee Ki took her through to the quarter-finals where she was tested the most in a 3-2 contest against Narantuya Bayarsaikhan.
Bai subsequently ousted Mink Nutcharut in the semi-finals, inflicting further pain on the women’s world number one having also beaten the Thai in the finals of the last two World Championships.
The 22 year-old started the final against Ng with a break of 52 and proceeded to win the opening four frames to quickly move to within the brink of victory.
Ng, herself a three-time former world champion, managed to avoid the whitewash but remained in her seat in the sixth frame when Bai wrapped up the triumph with an 81 contribution.
Bai remains third in the women’s world rankings behind Nutcharut and Ng, but it feels like it’s only a matter of time before she reaches the top step.
Next up is the International Championship on the World Snooker Tour, where she will face wildcard Wang Xinzhong in a held-over qualifying round.
On the World Women’s Snooker Tour, meanwhile, the next tournament on the calendar will be the Irish Women’s Open in Carlow at the end of November.
2025 Women’s Snooker Open
Selected Results
Round of 16
Bai Yulu 3-1 Ho Yee Ki
Narantuya Bayarsaikhan 3-2 Narucha Phoemphul
Mink Nutcharut 3-0 Fong Mei Mei
Baipat Siripaporn 3-0 Lau Yuk Fan
Ploychompoo Laokiatphong 3-2 So Man Yan
Natcharin Sornprasert 3-2 Panchaya Channoi
Anupama Ramachandran 3-2 Liu Ziling
Ng On Yee 3-0 Phakwalan Kongkaew
Quarter-Finals
Bai Yulu 3-2 Narantuya Bayarsaikhan
Mink Nutcharut 3-0 Baipat Siripaporn
Ploychompoo Laokiatphong 3-0 Natcharin Sornprasert
Ng On Yee 3-0 Anupama Ramachandran
Semi-Finals
Bai Yulu 4-1 Mink Nutcharut
Ng On Yee 4-2 Ploychompoo Laokiatphong
Final
Bai Yulu 5-1 Ng On Yee
Featured photo credit: WST
Crushing win. Her playing style, even her technique, reminds me of Stephen Hendry, her idol growing up, and now she’s demonstrating a level of dominance that is a further echo of the king of 90’s snooker. I think that only Ng On Yee and Mink are even in the same postcode now.
Yes, but she’s still only No.3 on the WWS rankings! It makes a mockery of the system, when someone like Bai Yulu misses WWS events to play on the WST tour. According to my calculations, Bai is closing in on top-100 in the world (men or women), and actually I don’t think she has played anywhere near her potential in the last 2 years, most likely because of the strain of the many changes to her life.
Ng On Yee needed 2 snookers in the 2nd frame, and managed it (two very good snookers). But then she missed a simple black at the end. After that choke, she found herself 4-0 down at the interval. Bai Yulu has now reached the level of respect that the other (top) women can’t perform against her, which supports your Hendry comparison. She also appears keen to chase 147s, which cost her a frame in the L16.
As always, it was a great event by WWS, albeit in a club setting. There were 2 streamed tables on Youtube. At the moment, the women’s game still lacks enough funding to make it financially viable for many of the better players to enter. There were lots of very weak players from Thailand, and others who presumably funded their own experience.
I agree that it’s ridiculous she’s not ranked number one.
They could’ve come up with a more imaginative title than Women’s Snooker Open. Why not include the country or city in the tournament name?