China’s Bai Yulu retains World Women’s Snooker Championship

Bai Yulu has defended her Women’s World Snooker Championship

Bai Yulu has won her second World Women’s Snooker Championship, beating Mink Nutcharut in the final, just as she did last year.

The 21-year-old beat the Thai star 6-4 in Dongguan to cement her place as the leading player in the women’s game.

China continue to boast the world champion in Zhao Xintong after his triumph at the Crucible and the women’s world champ thanks to Bai’s success on home soil.

Bai beat three-time former champion Ng On Yee in the quarter-finals before whitewashing compatriot Xia Yuying 5-0 in the semis.

That set up a clash with Mink in the final after the 2022 champion beat India’s Anupama Ramachandran 4-0 in the quarter-finals and fellow Thai cueist Baipat Siripaporn 5-1 in the semis.

The final was a tense affair with plenty of frames ending very closely, including the first of the match which Bai nicked 51-50.

Mink rallied and took the next three and led 4-2 with the only half-century of the contest.

Mink Nutcharut is runner-up for the second year on the spin (Picture: Getty Images)

That proved to be as good as things got for her, though, with the defending champion winning four on the spin to get her hands on the trophy again.

The final frame saw both having a number of chances to win it, with Mink dramatically going in-off on the final pink as it looked like she was forcing a decider.

Bai and Mink will continue to play on the World Snooker Tour in the forthcoming season along with two other female players in On Yee and Reanne Evans.

Results have proved difficult to come by so far for the female contingent on the professional tour, but Bai produced the most impressive string of wins at the 2024 UK Championship.

She downed Farakh Ajaib, Jamie Jones and Scott Donaldson in qualifying, only losing to Jack Lisowski in the final round before the main stages at the Barbican.

Those three wins over Ajaib, Jones and Donaldson saw her make 16 half-centuries.

Bai Yulu hopes to make more inroads on the professional tour (Picture: Getty)

She also won matches at the German Masters and Shoot Out in her debut professional season, earning herself the World Snooker Tour Rookie of the Year award for 2024/25.

Bai’s success will be extremely popular in China again after her first World Women’s Championship victory attracted huge viewing figures in her home country.

WWS wrote of the 2024 tournament: ‘In China, the event attracted cumulative viewing figures of 175.4 million, with a peak audience of 300,000 via the Huya streaming platform. The total accumulated viewing time totalled 104.7 million hours.

‘This was complemented by over 6 million unique viewers recorded by video-sharing platform Douyin.

‘On Western platforms the event also boasted record figures via the official WWS Facebook page, with over 725,000 total views across the week.’