The race to win the 2026 China Open title is heating up with the quarter-finals next on the agenda on Friday in Taiyuan.
Back on the calendar for the first time since 2019, the China Open offers one of snooker’s most lucrative prizes this season with a champion’s cheque worth £250,000 up for grabs.
A lot of the heavier hitters have already bitten the dust, including the likes of Judd Trump, Wu Yize, Zhao Xintong, and Ronnie O’Sullivan.
Yet there is still plenty of quality on display, and it promises to be an enthralling final few days to determine who ends the week with the trophy in his hands.
Let’s take a look at the four upcoming fixtures in the 2026 China Open quarter-finals draw.
Neil Robertson vs Mark Selby
Neil Robertson was the champion seven years ago when the China Open, once a staple of the annual schedule, was last staged.
The Australian has done well so far as he finally gets his overdue opportunity to defend the crown with victories over Chang Bingyu and Si Jiahui under his belt.
Robertson will be aware that, with his closest rivals already out of the tournament, a successful defence will also guarantee his return to the world number one position at the end of the month.
Mark Selby represents a tough quarter-final opponent to overcome, however.
The Englishman is a three-time China Open champion and was in dominant form to thrash Kyren Wilson 6-1 in the second round on Thursday.
Robertson and Selby played each other twice over 11 frames last season, sharing one win apiece.
When is it? Friday, 12:30pm BST
Stuart Bingham vs Zhang Anda
It was a mostly scrappy affair, but Stuart Bingham’s 6-0 demolition of Hossein Vafaei was a handy follow-up to his standout triumph over John Higgins in round one.
There was some controversy in the match as Bingham felt Vafaei bent the rules by deliberately going in-off in the fifth frame.
The pair exchanged heated words with the referee, but it didn’t really matter much as the 2015 world champion coasted through to the last eight.
Next up for Ballrun will be Zhang Anda, who backed up his dramatic ousting of Zhao Xintong with a 6-4 defeat of Chris Wakelin.
Zhang is homing in on a return to the top 16, although Bingham and some others left in the China Open draw could also break into the elite bracket with deep runs.
Bingham boasts a 4-2 head-to-head record over Zhang.
When is it? Friday, 12:30pm BST
Noppon Saengkham vs Shaun Murphy
Giant-killer Noppon Saengkham will be keen on adding a third established name to his impressive list of conquests when he faces Shaun Murphy.
Saengkham has already accounted for world number one Judd Trump – the winner of last week’s Shanghai Masters – and crowd favourite Ronnie O’Sullivan.
If he can see off the Magician as well, he may truly start to believe that this is the week when he can finally land that elusive maiden ranking crown.
The Thai’s previous best run came at the 2023 Scottish Open where he was denied glory in the final by Gary Wilson.
Murphy’s array of accolades are well known, and the Crucible runner-up seems to have picked up this season where he left off at the end of the last campaign.
Four century breaks on the trot helped him see off Matthew Selt in the first round before a 6-2 win over Xiao Guodong saw him safely advance to the quarters.
When is it? Friday, 07:00am BST
Zhou Yuelong vs David Gilbert
With the likes of Wu Yize, Mark Williams, Ding Junhui, and Barry Hawkins in the bottom section, few would have predicted a quarter-final outing between Zhou Yuelong and David Gilbert.
Both players have impressed, however, en route to a last-eight clash against one another.
Gilbert, who already reached the final of Championship League Snooker last month, has been one of the players of the fledgling 2026/27 campaign so far.
Both Gilbert and Zhou, in fact, have been scoring machines since the start of campaign – combining to compile more than 25 century breaks between them already.
While Gilbert has one career ranking title in his locker, Zhou arguably possesses the unwanted mantle of being the best player never to have won one.
This match gives them both a huge opportunity to reach the single table setup of an important tournament, and there’s nothing separating them in their head-to-head in ranking events with two victories each.
When is it? Friday, 07:00am BST
Featured photo credit: WST
Hi David thanks for your top notch reporting. Could you please explain the incident between Start Bingham and Hossein Vafaei. I did not catch what the commentator said and I am not familiar with the term in-off. Stuart is not the tallest person in the world but the optics of him being so close to the tiny female referee and the confused look on her face looked wrong.
Thank you David Caulfield.
ps. your adjective of “on the trot” made my day. I love trotters.
‘in-off’ means to pot the white. Bingham accused Vafaei of doing that on purpose, which essentially amounted to a more effective safety shot and kept Bingham in trouble (because the white returned to the D area in baulk). It’s not against the rules but sort of against the spirit of the game I guess.
Thank you David.
>‘in-off’ means to pot the white
Yes, that’s the ‘in’ part — ‘off’ means the cue ball hits another ball first, usually the object ball (maybe not always) — obviously that would be much more difficult to do *on purpose*, except in rather unusual circumstances (both balls positioned near a pocket).
>a more effective safety shot and kept Bingham in trouble
Did anyone reading/commenting see the incident? — what was the situation/context? — how were the balls positioned? — was it an ‘in-off’, or did Vafaei just hit the cue ball directly into a pocket? — suppose the latter were to happen for the reason David suggests: can a referee call a miss in that circumstance, award foul points, and put the cue ball back?
Assuming it *was* an ‘in-off’, and excluding the unusual case where cue and object ball are so close to a pocket that it can be done easily, and intent can perhaps be more easily judged, I think if a player is skillful enough to pull off this maneuver, and it’s not against the rules, then I think you have to accept it rather than create a scene at the table — maybe push for a rule change later, although I’m not sure how intent can be reliably determined.
In 14 years as a snooker professional Noppon Saengkham has earn his highest payday at a tournament by reaching the semi-finals.
Wow, that’s interesting — thanks for that bit of info.
Shows how tough it can be financially for less successful, lower-ranked players, especially those who cannot attract sponsors (perhaps Saengkham is famous enough in Thailand that he has has some) — I speculated about this before before vis-a-vis the women who have tour cards, i.e. how difficult it can be for them to finance participating in events (travel, accommodation, etc).