2026 International Championship qualifiers: draw, schedule, how to watch

6 Comments

1. 

   eah

   September 17, 2026 at 3:28 pm  ·  Reply

   >Gary Wilson vs Ng On Yee (Sat 19 Sep, 09:30)
   >Joe O’Connor vs Bai Yulu (Sat 19 Sep, 09:30)

   Not the easiest draw for these two, especially Onyee Ng — again, I think the WST should tinker with the draw so the women play a low-ranked male player in the first qualifying round — they should not play each other — playing a low-ranked male player helped Onyee Ng (I see different spellings of her name; it’s spelled Onyee Ng on the WST website) win her first round qualifier for Northern Ireland Open.

   >Stan Moody vs Panchaya Channoi (Sat 19 Sep, 14:30)

   That will be an interesting match.

   I see by the full list of 2026/2017 tour card holders on the WST website that Mink Nutcharut apparently no longer has a valid tour card (I wondered before why I didn’t see her in the qualifiers) — realistically, the only way for a woman to get a card is via doing well enough on the women’s tour, particularly the Women’s WC — this year Mink lost in the SF to Panchaya Channoi (who beat Bai Yulu in the QF).

   • 

     Daniel White

     September 17, 2026 at 6:40 pm  ·  Reply

     Bai Yulu, into her second two year tour card, was the one I was interested to see progress. So far this season there has been no progress.

     On Yee Ng is a better player now than when she won 3 women’s world titles in pre covid19 times as far as I can tell, but last night I watched her play scrappy snooker that had no potential to it, and lose limply 4-0 to Michael Holt. This whitewash was despite her having the run of the balls in the 3rd frame when she held a 44 point lead, with 67 remaining on, 3 reds in semi awkward positions, and the yellow near to the cushion. She hopelessly failed to defend that position even after Holt accidentally snookered himself playing onto the last red during his comeback!

     Its been several seasons with the top 2 women players automatically being promoted to the main tour each year and having a roster of 4 women players “guaranteed” main tour cards. A couple of years ago I thought that they were starting to make progress after a rocky first couple of years. That now seems to have stagnated, reversed slightly, to be honest, rather than continued to build.

     Playing competitively against better players was meant to help the best women players to improve. Getting more exposure for them was meant to help attract more female players. These entrant players would also improve through access to competition with ever improving peers.

     So far it does not seem that this rationale has been justified by results to me.

     More and more womens’ snooker is putting me in mind of a weaker version of womens pro pool, which had a heavy British presence 30 years ago – despite obviously being USA focused – and has increasingly had east Asian players challenging in the last 20 years – and where the best women players try out on the main pro pool tour quite frequently, and do occasionally win a match, but never go well against an upper level, let alone elite level, main tour male pro.

     • 

       eah

       September 17, 2026 at 8:07 pm  ·  Reply

       >So far this season there has been no progress.

       I’m not too optimistic at this point — meaning I’d like to see her do better, but I don’t think she will improve enough — women just cannot build breaks; they do not control the cue ball well enough — they also miss too many pots they really shouldn’t miss — women’s snooker is tedious to watch, with repeated lengthy periods of safety play.

       To me Bai Yulu is clearly the best female player at the moment — she is a good potter, and builds breaks better than the others — for this reason her lack of progress (as measured by matches against male players) has been disappointing.

       She did beat the #91 ranked male player in the first round of qualifying for the Northern Ireland Open — in my opinion the WST should facilitate confidence-boosting results like that by making sure to match (‘draw’) the women against low-ranked men in the first round of qualifying.

       • 

         Daniel White

         September 17, 2026 at 8:43 pm  ·  Reply

         I agree, I think that there are three areas of matchplay that differential the women players from the men:

         firstly, cue ball striking, and from this lacking cue ball control, and therefore lack of shot choices, and thereby break building.

         Secondly, peripheral vision: cut back pots are a repeated vulnerability during breaks, and positioning around the spots with open, or semi-open reds to navigate round, and safety ball positions all suffer.

         Thirdly, shot-making – which is more of a pool term usually – but relevant in snooker too. The ability to see and execute a situation busting “made shot” to open up a break or safety exchange.

         What concerns me about the prospect of future progress from the best women players is that these are the same three difficulties that they are still waiting to overcome in pro pool relative to the main tour mens game. They have a big headstart there relative to snooker, and still those hurdles are unsurmounted.

         The lengthy safety exchanges and stop-start breaks are possibly a combination of these three playing issues.

         I actually started watching women’s snooker because I enjoyed watching women’s pool, and the reason I enjoyed watching women’s pool was because I could comprehend the shots: the mindset and the execution of them. The angles and sequences they used were things I’d try and use on the pool table. Whereas watching the men’s matches was almost like watching a different game to the game I attempted to play recreationally.

         I’m seeing the same in snooker now. That’s the real cause of my growing pessimism.

         As for the ” handicap seeding” idea for women players on the tour: it would be a last throw of the dice by the administrators imo. I’m not sure what else there is to try after that. I’m also not sure that the atmosphere is quite the same as it was 5, 10, 15 years ago now, and maybe there wouldn’t be the will to go that last step at this stage. It could be a nonstarter now.

2. 

   Len

   September 18, 2026 at 2:35 am  ·  Reply

   Last year was my first into snooker and I was all over the qualifications. But after a year realizing that most players that qualify end up losing in the first round or second at best. There is nothing that is 100% so yes there are players that most of us expected a promising future such as Chang Bingyu and Wu Yuize. There was even surprises in Home Nation Series such as Judd coughing up a win in favour of his best friend or the most tantalizing win recently by Zak Jones.

   But there many snooker players like Jackson Page that recently qualified for the first 4 ranking tournaments, travel to China and lose all his matches.

   Personally, I have decided to wait for the real tournament second half to start, to get excited.

   All the best my friends.

3. 

   Jay Brannon

   September 18, 2026 at 5:16 am  ·  Reply

   White and Stevens meeting for the first time since the 2020 Shootout and only a third clash since 2010. Their first meeting was at the 1996 British Open.

   White’s last win over Stevens came at the 2005 Masters. Stevens has emerged victorious in all three of their Crucible meetings.

   White beat Stevens in their only contest in a final – the 1999 Pontins Professional.

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