The 2026 WSF Championships are under way in Sofia, Bulgaria. The Junior and Women events have already been played to a finish. The junior event carries a main tour card for the winner.

Here are the reports on those events:

Bai Yulu has won the Women event:

Bai Yulu Wins WSF Womens’ Championship And Tops Rankings

Bai Yulu has defeated OnYee Ng 4-0 to win the WSF Women’s Championship at the Hotel Marinela in Sofia and in doing so become world number one for the first time in her career. 

Already a winner at the UK Championship, Niche Cues Open and Irish Open tournaments during the first half of the season, 22-year-old Bai did not lose a single frame during this week’s event in Bulgaria during what was a dominant performance to win her fourth ranking event title of the season.

The Chinese star has now won eight ranking event titles since her World Women’s Snooker Tour debut at the 2023 World Championship and becomes only the 13th player and third from Asia to hold the world number one ranking since 1983.

Bai also compiled the top break of 131 during the semi-finals – her highest to date on the WWS Tour – as well as a further run of 102 to take her total for the season to seven, itself a Tour record for a player during a single campaign.

In the final she would face OnYee Ng for the third time this season and it was the three-time world champion from Hong Kong China who appeared favourite to claim the opening frame as Bai required a snooker with just two reds remaining.

Bai, however, was able to extract the four penalty points required before ultimately producing a colour clearance to land an early blow and steal the frame by just two points.

From that point it was Bai who was able to largely control the match, breaks of 48 and 45 enough to double her advantage, before further runs of 34 and 38 during the following two frames were ultimtely enough to extend her current Tour winning streak to 39 matches.

Michael Larkov has won the Junior event

Larkov Wins World Junior Title

Michael Larkov defeated Wang Xinbo 5-2 to win the 2026 World Snooker Federation (WSF) Junior Championship and earn a two-year World Snooker Tour (WST) tour card.

The 17-year-old from Ukraine came through a field of 80 cueists at the Hotel Marinela in Sofia, Bulgaria to secure his place among the professional ranks for the first time in his career.

Friday in Sofia saw four hopefuls remaining after four days of action and it was Larkov who defeated Thailand’s Prin Ratmukda and China’s Wang on the final day to join Iulian Boiko as the Ukrainian representation on the WST from the 2026/27 campaign.

The event began with the group phase where Larkov began with a trio of consecutive whitewash victories over Adyan Iqbal, William Thomson and Wojciech Sowinski to qualify for the knockout stages.

A top break of 101 saw the Ukrainian comfortably overcome Mikayel Nersisyan 4-0 before he showed his battling qualities to turn around a 3-1 deficit against Scotland’s Ayaan Iqbal and reach the quarter-finals.

Larkov was competing in his third WSF Junior Championship and had never previously gone beyond the last 16, but breaks of 114 and 73 on Saturday helped the teenager to a 4-1 victory over China’s Wang Xinzhong to earn a place in the final day for the first time.

Both semi-finals were one-sided affairs as Larkov downed Thailand’s Ratmukda 4-0 while Wang completed the final line-up courtesy of a victory against England’s Daniel Boyes by the same scoreline.

China’s Wang, aged 18, was competing in the event for the first time and boasted a CV that had seen him competing in four events on the WST this season which included a win against Robbie Williams at the Wuhan Open.

An impressive week for the teenager had seen him drop just four frames across eight matches to reach the title match but he found himself in trouble against Larkov as the Ukrainian hit two half centuries to win four of the first five frames and move one away from glory.

Wang kept his hopes alive with a break of 75 in sixth but Larkov was unphased and got over the line in the next with a contribution of 60 to secure the title as a 5-2 victor.

The WSF Open Championship takes place on 24 January-1 Feburary at Hotel Marinela, Sofia. You can follow the event via WPBSA SnookerScores and two tables will be streamed live on the WPBSA YouTube channel.

Congratulations Bai and Michael!

Bai completely dominated the women’s competition, she’s head and shoulders above the rest of them, and yet she’s not quite able to establish herself on the main tour. 😟 The facts that not that many girls are attracted to the sport and that the “macho” mentality still exists in many clubs are factors but I’m not convinced that there aren’t actual physical factors as well. Physical strength may not be as important in snooker than it is in other sports, but it’s still a useful asset when playing some shots. And then there is eye-hand coordination. “On average” boys are better at that¹, denying it won’t change the facts. “On average” means nothing for the individual, but it does mean something when considering a population.

1. Probably because of “natural selection” factors. In primitive societies, men being stronger were usually the hunters, and eye hand coordination is a huge asset for a hunter. Women usually were looking after children and elderly, needing empathy and social skills more than physical strengths ↩︎