The 2026 International Championship is an upcoming professional snooker tournament that will take place from 31 October to 7 November 2026 in Nanjing, China. Qualifiers took place from 17 to 19 September at the Leicester Arena in Leicester, England. The 12th edition of the International Championship since it was first staged in 2012, it will be the eighth ranking event of the 2026–27 snooker season, following the 2026 Northern Ireland Open and preceding the 2026 UK Championship.
Wu Yize is the defending champion, having defeated John Higgins 10–6 in the 2025 final.
Overview The International Championship is a professional ranking snooker tournament held in China. It first took place in 2012 and the inaugural champion was Judd Trump, who defeated Neil Robertson 10–8 in the final. Staged from 2012 to 2014 in Chengdu and from 2015 to 2019 in Daqing, the tournament was not held from 2020 to 2022 due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following its return to the calendar, the tournament was staged in Tianjin in 2023 and Nanjing in 2024 and 2025.
The 2026 edition of the tournament—the 12th staging of the event—will take place from 31 October to 7 November in Nanjing. Qualifiers took place from 17 to 19 September at the Leicester Arena in Leicester, England. It will be the eighth ranking event of the 2026–27 snooker season, following the 2026 Northern Ireland Open and preceding the 2026 UK Championship. Wu Yize is the defending champion, having defeated John Higgins 10–6 in the 2025 final.
Prize fund The prize fund for the tournament is detailed below.
Winner: £175,000 Runner-up: £75,000 Semi-final: £33,000 Quarter-final: £22,000 Last 16: £14,000 Last 32: £9,000 Last 64: £5,000
Highest break: £5,000 Total: £825,000
Summary Qualifying Kyren Wilson defeated Leone Crowley 6–5, Barry Hawkins whitewashed Oliver Sykes, Huang Jiahao defeated Jimmy Robertson 6–5, Yao Pengcheng beat Elliot Slessor 6–2, Gao Yang defeated Jordan Brown 6–5, Zhang Anda whitewashed Artemijs Žižins, and Stephen Maguire beat Mateusz Baranowski 6–5. Jimmy White defeated Matthew Stevens 6–5, Mina Awad, the African champion, beat Zak Surety 6–1, David Grace defeated Tom Ford 6–5, Neil Robertson whitewashed Alexander Ursenbacher, and Jak Jones beat Liam Pullen 6–3.
Mark Williams beat Andrew Higginson 6–4, Mark Selby beat Luo Zetao 6–1, Wang Xinbo defeated David Gilbert 6–4, and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh whitewashed Chatchapong Nasa. Dylan Emery defeated Xiao Guodong 6–4, Luca Brecel beat Jamie Clarke 6–3, and Ishpreet Singh Chadha beat Deng Haohui 6–1.
Shaun Murphy recovered from 0–3 down to beat Zhao Hanyang 6–4, Joe O'Connor defeated Bai Yulu 6–5, Gary Wilson beat Ng On-yee 6–2, and Chang Bingyu whitewashed Fergal Quinn. Anton Kazakov beat Ali Carter 6–2, Stan Moody whitewashed Panchaya Channoi, and Liam Davies beat Anthony McGill 6–1.
Main draw The draw for the tournament is shown below. Numbers in parentheses after the players' names denote the top 32 seeded players, an "(a)" indicates amateur players not on the World Snooker Tour, and players in bold denote match winners.
Top half
Bottom half
Qualifying round All matches are best of 11 .
Pre-qualifying round The following three matches were held over to the main arena in Nanjing to determine the opponents of Jackson Page, Judd Trump and Fan Zhengyi respectively.
– – –
Last 128 The results of the qualifying matches are shown below. Numbers in parentheses after the players' names denote the players' seeding, an "a" indicates amateur players who were not on the main World Snooker Tour, and players in bold denote match winners. Matches held over to the main arena are marked with a dagger ().
Note: Match held over to the main venue in Nanjing.
Century breaks
Qualifying stage centuries A total of 45 century breaks were made during the qualifying stage of the tournament in Leicester.
142 Kyren Wilson 137, 106 Stuart Carrington 135, 117, 103 David Grace 132 Jack Lisowski 130 David Gilbert 130 Xiao Guodong 128 John Higgins 125, 105 Gao Yang 123 Lyu Haotian 121 Mark Selby 121 Matthew Stevens 120 Luo Zetao 117 Liu Hongyu 114 Ishpreet Singh Chadha 113 Florian Nüßle 111 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 108 Liam Davies 108 Jak Jones 107 Jamie Clarke 107 Zhao Hanyang 106, 104 Hossein Vafaei 106 Liam Highfield 106 Liam Pullen 106 Xu Si 105, 100 Neil Robertson 105 Dylan Emery 105 Liam Graham 105 Yuan Sijun 104 Sam Craigie 104 Jimmy White 103 Huang Jiahao 103 Antoni Kowalski 103 Stephen Maguire 103 Mitchell Mann 103 Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon 102 Ross Muir 101 Marco Fu 100 Joe O'Connor 100 Mark Williams
Notes
References