Snooker: Thai's Cinderella story comes to an end - China Open gets a familiar Champion

Mark Selby made history on Sunday, becoming the first player to be crowned champion four times at snooker's China Open. He defeated the tournament's undoubted sensation Noppon Saengkham in the final, as his experience prevailed over a potential Cinderella story.

Ranked just 45th in the world coming into the tournament, Noppon's streak of victories against Trump, O'Sullivan, Murphy and Zhou has drawn headlines across the world. He continued in the final exactly where he'd left off from in previous rounds, taking a 4-2 lead in the morning session.

Selby is an elite competitor though, not to be fazed easily. Before the morning session was done the scores were already levelled at 4-4, and after the break the Englishman made breaks of 58, 90, 69 and 52 to gallop into a secure 8-4 lead.

Noppon has earned the nickname "Dark Horse" from the Chinese crowd across the tournament, but his comeback would have required a level of magic reserved for unicorns to be completed against the Brit. Although he did manage to stop the rot, the following frames where traded, meaning Selby was crowned champion after a 10-6 victory.

- I'm really happy to be standing here as champion, I played really well across the whole week. Noppon was excellent in the first session, and I was fortunate to pinch the last two frames. I was over the moon to be level because he probably felt he deserved to have a lead at that point, Selby told WST after the match.

- Mark was very strong today and controlled the match well, his safety game was so good. At 4-2 up he was under pressure, but everything changed in the evening session and Mark was just controlling everything. I'm happy in the way I played this tournament and I'll keep working hard to hopefully one day become champion, Noppon responded.

A disappointment to Saengkham for sure, but as a whole his tournament has been a career-best - and it will show in his bank account as well. Even the losing finalist at the China Open pockets himself 100 000 pounds, and this is the Thai's first six-figure score in his career.

The 250 000 prize for winning will surely warm Selby as well, but he'll probably be more content with regaining his form, which was looking shaky at the start of the year. "The Jester from Leicester" was even forced into a cue change, and he's now been playing with a larger tip to previous years.

That decision is clearly bearing fruit, although in his own words Selby isn't quite comfortable with the switch as of yet. Losing just 13 frames in five matches however is terrifying form for the rest of the Tour, and Selby is without a doubt one of the favourites once the UK Championship rolls up as the last major tournament of the year.

You can find all the results from the China Open snooker tournament in 2026 below.













Source: WST