China Wins First World Snooker Team Championship
China has won the World Snooker Team Championship for the first time in history, defeating India 3-2 in a thrilling final held in Dongguan, Guangdong Province. The victory, confirmed by the Chinese Billiard Association and reported by Xinhua News Agency, marks a landmark achievement for Chinese snooker on the international stage.
The tournament, organized under the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF), was hosted in China for the first time. Twenty-four teams from around the world competed in the event, which serves as the highest-level team competition in amateur snooker and a key pathway for players transitioning to professional status.
A Dramatic Final
China’s Team A — composed of Li Chengjie, Pan Yiming, and Xu Jiarui — faced a formidable Indian side led by legendary cueist Pankaj Advani, a winner of 23 world titles across multiple cue sports formats, and former professional player Aditya Mehta.
The final went down to the wire. Advani won the opening frame against Li Chengjie, but Xu Jiarui leveled the match by defeating Mehta in the second frame. The Chinese duo of Xu and Pan then shut out Advani and Mehta in the doubles frame to take a 2-1 lead. Advani, demonstrating his class, won his second singles match against Xu to tie the contest at 2-2.
In the decisive fifth frame, Li Chengjie — who had lost his opening match — staged a remarkable comeback. Trailing at one point, he composed himself, fought back, and secured the championship-clinching victory. As People’s Daily reported, citing Xinhua, the Chinese team “withstood pressure, staged a comeback, and defeated their opponents, winning the championship for the first time.”
India had reached the final after defeating defending champions Hong Kong China 3-1 in the semifinals, as reported by Rediff.com. Earlier in the tournament, India had also eliminated China’s Team B in the quarterfinals, where Ma Hailong scored an impressive 136 break.
Dongguan: The Snooker Capital of China
The tournament’s location was deeply symbolic. Dongguan, a manufacturing hub in the Pearl River Delta, has long been recognized as the cradle of Chinese snooker. According to a detailed analysis by China City News, over 70 percent of China’s professional snooker players have trained in Dongguan, a figure that rises to 90 percent among players under 21.
The city’s snooker ecosystem is unique. Snooker was introduced to the region from Hong Kong in the 1980s, and in 1995, Dongguan’s first professional billiard club opened, importing top-quality tables from England. In 1998, an 11-year-old Ding Junhui moved to Dongguan to train, eventually winning the China Open in 2005 and sparking a national snooker boom.
Today, Dongguan boasts the CBSA World Snooker Academy South China Branch, which has trained over 1,000 students and produced more than 220 national-level coaches and 280 referees. The city is also a global center for billiard equipment manufacturing, with over 70 percent of the world’s billiard tables, cues, and cloth produced in China, with a core production area in Dongguan.
“As long as you play snooker well, no matter if you’re an athlete or not, in Dongguan, many people will be willing to help you,” Huang Zhufeng, President of the Dongguan Billiard Association, told China City News. “This is the unique character of Dongguan city.”
A Landmark Year for Chinese Snooker
The team championship victory caps a remarkable period for Chinese snooker. Just weeks earlier, in May 2026, Wu Yize won the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield, becoming the first post-2000s player and only the second Chinese player — after Zhao Xintong — to claim the sport’s most prestigious individual title.
The back-to-back successes — individual and team — signal the maturation of China’s snooker development system. Unlike nations that rely on individual talent emerging sporadically, China has built an infrastructure that produces both world-class individual players and deep team rosters. China fielded two teams at the championship, with Team B reaching the quarterfinals.
What’s Next
The victory raises questions about the future of Chinese snooker. Will Li Chengjie, Pan Yiming, and Xu Jiarui turn professional? Will Dongguan bid to host future editions of the World Snooker Team Championship? And can China build on this momentum to establish sustained dominance in a sport where it was once a newcomer?
What is clear is that Chinese snooker has entered a new era. From the grassroots halls of Dongguan to the world stage, the sport’s center of gravity is shifting — and China is now firmly at its heart.