Kyren Wilson wins Northern Ireland Open with 9-2 victory over Jak Jones
Kyren Wilson has won the Northern Ireland Open, beating Jak Jones 9-2 in the final at the Waterfront Hall on Sunday 25 October. It is the second time Wilson has won the event in three years.
Snooker matches are split into frames, which are single games. The first player to win the required number of frames takes the match, and each frame is a fresh start on an empty table.
Wilson led 6-2 after the afternoon session. He then won the opening three frames of the evening to finish the job. The final was a repeat of the 2024 World Championship final, which Wilson also won.
The match opened with a flourish. Wilson made a 101 break in the first frame, a century, meaning 100 or more points scored in one visit to the table. Jones answered in the sixth frame with a 130 break, the highest of the match so far, before Wilson pulled clear.
For Wilson, the title is his 11th in ranking events. Ranking events are tournaments whose results count towards the official world rankings, which decide who gets into the big tournaments and where they start. He was ranked world number nine when he won. It is his first ranking title since the Players Championship in 2025.
Wilson lifted the Alex Higgins trophy, named after the Belfast player who won the World Championship three times in the 1970s and 1980s. Winning the Northern Ireland Open also means a place in the record books for the tournament, which has been part of the professional calendar for decades.
Jones came into the final as the British Open champion. He had already beaten Mark Williams in the semi-final to reach the decider. Wilson's route to the final ran through Sam Craigie in the semi-final.
What makes this result stand out is the gap between the two players at the interval. Wilson was four frames up at 6-2 and never let the lead slip. Jones's two frames came in between, and the scoreline shows how little room he had to recover once the evening began.
For fans, the win is a reminder that Wilson remains a regular threat in the big events. A ranking title after a long gap will do his standing no harm, and the quiet, steady style that has carried him through many long sessions was on show again in Belfast.
