A Star is Born as Channoi Wins First World Snooker Title Aged 18

Home » A Star is Born as Channoi Wins First World Snooker Title Aged 18

Thailand’s Panchaya Channoi has defeated Reanne Evans 6-2 to win the World Women’s Snooker Championship title for the first time in her career at the Snooker Sports Arena in Dongguan Changping, China and earn a two-year professional World Snooker Tour card from the start of the 2026/27 season.

Victory for the 18-year-old represents her first ranking event title on the World Women’s Snooker Tour and sees her become only the 16th player to have lifted the Mandy Fisher Trophy since 1976.

Known as ‘Mind’ Panchaya, she becomes the youngest world champion since Ann-Marie Farren earned the crown in 1987 and the fourth first-time champion from the past five years, joining compatriots Mink Wongharuthai and Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan, as well as China’s Bai Yulu in lifting the trophy since 2022.

Channoi made her Tour debut at the World Championship in 2019 aged just 11, winning the world under-21 title for the first time in 2025 and last year losing 4-2 to eventual champion Bai Yulu at the last 16 stage of the main competition. It was not until this season that Channoi began to compete outside of Asia for the first time, as she notably reached the semi-finals of the WSF Women’s Championship back in January.

A prodigious talent, Channoi brilliantly claimed the scalps of Bai, Mink and finally Reanne Evans this week to reach the summit of women’s snooker and also emulated the achievement of Bai Yulu in 2024 by completing the main and Under-21 world title double during the same year.

Channoi also scored the highest break of the Championship with a run of 107 in the title match and became only the second woman to compile two century breaks in the title match, emulating the feat of Evans in 2013.

The success will see her climb eight places to a career-high position of number seven in the latest WWS world rankings.

For Evans, who was appearing in her first world final since her record 12th victory in 2019, the defeat is her first final loss of her career at the blue riband event and sees her wait for an unprecedented 13th title go on.

The first ever meeting between the pair got off to an explosive start as Channoi claimed the opening frame with a milestone break of 100 which was her first ever century on the WWS Tour, becoming only the 19th player to have achieved the feat.

Having added the second frame, through a combination of a well-taken break of 51 and a frame ball fluke on the final blue, Channoi was able to move halfway to victory  at 3-0.

Evans, who was looking to claim arguably the biggest win of her illustrious career with a 13th world title, responded either side of the mid-session interval by claiming frame four on the black, before punishing a missed red by her opponent with a high-quality run of 66 to reduce her arrears to just a single frame.


Channoi, however, was able to respond in impressive fashion as she compiled her second century break of the match with a tournament-high run of 107 to restore her two frame advantage.

From here, she was to add further breaks of 43 and ultimately a nerveless 59 to cross the winning line and achieve a lifelong dream of becoming world champion for the first time in her career.

News, WWS

Panchaya Channoi, Reanne Evans, World Women's Snooker Championship

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