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The 47-year-old former UK champion and six times runner-up in the world championship defeated Barry Hawkins 8-6 to win the SangSom 6-red World Grand Prix after a three and half hour marathon.

White, who entered the tournament courtesy of a wild card, was never among the favourites and he did not start as one when the title showdown began on Sunday night.

Earlier in the first round, White scraped through to the knockout stages by finishing fourth in Group E with three wins and two losses.

He gathered steam as the tournament progressed and recorded impressive victories over former world professional champion Shaun Murphy in the last 32 round and then went on to add the scalps of defending champion Ricky Walden and world No 16 Mark King, the top performer in the first round.

In the semi-finals, White accounted for another former world professional champion Mark J Williams to the delight of his large army of Thai fans.

Hawkins, playing in front of an overflowing crowd and live on Thai television channels, got off to a flyer, taking a 2-0 lead, but once White found his form, the momentum swung one way or the other as the two finalists went for broke.

The exchanges produced some high quality safety and break-building. The highest break of the match was a 61 of a maximum 75 points that put White 5-4 up. Try as hard as he did, Hawkins failed to get in front again after leading for the last time at the end of the fifth frame.

"I had a great chance to win the second frame but fluffed it. However it wasn't the end of the world and I'm delighted to have won here. I now believe that six reds tournaments like this are here to stay and will feature permanently in snooker playing countries," said White.

The tournament was a great success as it kept attracting massive crowds to the venue since day one on July 7.

The organisers have received confirmation from leading sports broadcasters such as ESPN, Sky Sports and Euro Sports that they will airing 14-hour highlights f the tournament, taking it to billions of viewers in over 110 countries.

Final frame scores: Jimmy White beat Barry Hawkins 8-6 (0-64, 22-41, 56-11, 41-0, 0-71, 47-0, 49-25, 8-35, 61(61)-0, 44-13, 20-30, 10-41, 43-16, 42-8)