Reanne Evans has won the UK Women’s Snooker Championship for the 11th time
Congratulations Reanne!
Here is the report by the Women’s Tour:
Evans Wins 11th UK Crown
Reanne Evans defeated Ng On Yee 4-3 to win the Taom UK Women’s Snooker Championship for a record-extending 11th time at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds.
Victory for Evans in the season-opener represents her first ranking event triumph since the same event in September 2021 and her third consecutive success at the Tour’s second most contested title. The win is her 64th ranking event title in all, moving Evans to within four of the all-time record set by Allison Fisher.
The world number one defeated Chucky Preston (3-0), Jamie Hunter (3-1) and Rebecca Kenna (4-1) to reach her 14th UK final since her debut at the event back in 2002.
Awaiting her would be long-time rival and world number two Ng On Yee, herself a four-time UK champion from just five previous appearances in the competition and looking to claim her second ranking event title of the calendar year following success at April’s Winchester Open. She dropped just one frame from six matches on her run to the final, which most notably included a 4-0 whitewash of reigning world champion Nutcharut Wongharuthai in the semi-finals.
It was the Hong Kong player who led the match three times at 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2, a match-high break of 57 in frame five taking her to within a frame of victory. Back though came Evans to force a decider, during which both would have chances with England’s Evans ultimately doing enough to prevail and end her short title drought.
Victory for Evans sees her consolidate her position at the head of the world rankings ahead of Ng, with beaten semi-finalists Nutcharut Wongharuthai and Rebecca Kenna remaining third and fourth respectively.
Side-Tournaments
For the third consecutive tournament there was a title double for Ploychompoo Laokiatphong and Tessa Davidson in the Under-21 and Seniors tournaments respectively, as the pair continued their dominance in the categories.
Victory for Laokiatphong against first-time junior finalist Chloe Payne sees the Thai player become the number one ranked player in the Under-21 rankings for the first time, with former number one Steph Daughtery having turned 21 during the summer.
For Davidson, her victory against Sarah Dunn sees the former ranking event winner retain her unblemished record on the Seniors Tour since her return to the circuit in January, with four titles from four events played so far. She will retain the top Seniors ranking ahead of second placed Jenny Poulter.
Finally, there was a first side-tournament victory for Thailand’s Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan, who defeated Zoe Killington in the final of the Challenge Cup for players who did not qualify from the group stages. The 2019 World Cup winner claimed the single frame final with a fantastic break of 79.
World Women’s Snooker would like to thank title sponsors Taom Billiards and host venue the Northern Snooker Centre, without the support of whom the event would not have been possible.
The WWS Tour returns later this month with the inaugural staging of the US Women’s Open from Ox Billiards in Seattle. Entry remains open for the event HERE.
I’m sure though that many reading this will think “Bah! She’s not able to do anything on the Main Tour, what’s the value of it?”. I can understand such reactions, but let’s have a look at some factors that are important to consider before issuing such damning judgement.
Every sport is a “number game”: the more exponents, the higher the chances to find exceptional talents. I have already written about this in the past but it’s worth saying it again: many women and girls have got bad experiences in billiards/snooker clubs. They are often made to feel unwelcome, some clubs and league still ban them altogether. They are often taunted, mocked and sexually hassled, especially the teenagers. The majority of them will give up quickly, feeling unsafe. The Women’s tour is offering them a “safe” place, “safe” events. The level isn’t as high as on the main tour and that’s an understatement. It does attract girls to the sport, which is a huge positive, but it doesn’t offer a level of competition allowing girls to succeed on the main tour, not yet anyway.
Yesterday, the “Lionesses”, England’s Women’s football team, won the UEFA Women’s EURO in a packed Wembley stadium. The match was shown by the BBC and attracted an immense audience. They got the whole nation behind them. Journalists on site praised the good spirit in which the match was played, as well as the enthousiast but friendly crowd. One of them, reflected that it had made him realise how “tribal” and “toxic” men football often is. This, IMO, is true especially at the highest level, the level where money has superseeded sport. By that I mean both the indecently high wages some get and the huge betting industry around the sport.
Women have a lot to bring to sport. They need however to be allowed to play, and to be able to start in a safe and welcoming environment. That’s the only way to “grow” the number of girls in sport, and with it the chance to see exceptional talents.
Jason Ferguson has often said that snooker isn’t a sport requiring physical strength, and, therefore, girls should be able to compete with men “on equal terms”. I’m not entirely convinced. There are men, currently on the tour, who can’t play certain shots as well as other competitors, because of their stature or relative lack of power. Women are, on average, shorter and less “powerful” than men. But there is more IMO. Just observe toddlers … “on average” boys will display better eye-hand-foot coordination, girls will be more advanced when it comes to language skills and “precise” small mouvements. Eye-hand coordination is essential in snooker. At that age, I don’t think it’s a “culturally induced feature”, more likely the result of a long but slow “genetic” evolution. Mind you, it’s been about 2 700 000 years since “Homo” started using tools, 300000 years since “Homo sapiens” is around, only 3500 years since writing was “invented”. Civilisation and technology have gone through an accelerated evolution path. Genetics won’t evolve that quickly. But “on average” means nothing for the individual. Very clumsy men, as well as extremely well coordinated women exist … if snooker can attract enough girls, if the opportunities are there, female champions will emerge.
Ronnie O'Sullivan 
Yes, Monique. Mostly I got ur point. I mixed stamina, experience and ‘mental stamina’ a bit and I was just saying that it’s good that the female players have a certain amount of tournaments to play in on the Women’s tour to learn basically everything that’s needed and that long distance matches could possibly have an deterrent effect on females who want to get into the game via this tour so I just wouldn’t make them as long as on the MainTour.
The main reason why “long” matches are not offered in the women’s tour is because they would take ages to finish because of the rather poor level of many players. Most of them are poor at break building, the balls end up in akward places, and frames lasting about an hour are no rarities. Add to that the fact that most are amateurs with jobs and families. So the whole tournament is often played over 2 or 3 days maximum, including a “plate” event. Therefore long matches are not even an option.
Totally agree. That’s what I meant by saying a best-of 35 final on the Women’s tour would be counterproductive.
I agree on that stamina isn’t a factor atm, but it could become one in the future. Therefore I would say it’s not absolutely necessary to make the matches longer just yet.
To clarify that: Ofc I don’t think that a current female player could have the stamina to win a best-of 35 or even 19 final. But that’s because u usually get a quality opponent in the final. But in the early rounds, as Monique reported, apparently it doesn’t play a big role. But ofc the females have to build stamina, so a best-of 35 match between two (elite) female players would theoretically be possible but at this point in time in my eyes it would be counterproductive. I think atm it’s better for them to build stamina from playing a lot of matches, which means from a lot of tournaments, then from a few tournaments with long distance matches.
*THAN from a few tournaments…….
I’m not sure you got my point Christian. Women, and young women in particukar, don’t have a stamina issue. They don’t get tired earlier than men, and their attention span isn’t shorter. What it is about is that they aren’t used to the conditions. Short matches don’t give the players time to adapt. They put them under pressure right from the start. This is true for women players on tour , and of course, equally true for all the young player with little experience on the tour. And the structure doesn’t help. They play one match, if they lose they may have to wait weeks before playing the next. It’s hard to build anything that way, and it’s why the “academies” are so helpful for the players who are members of one.
I Personally think it’s detrimental going from Main Tour to women’s Snooker, you are flip flopping from being the Greatest to one of the chasing pack.
She’s Winning Trophies or going to latter stages in one discipline and Cant win any match in the other.
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I Think she is a talented player and has potential but Losing has to hurt like hell, i don’t think it does with her or any of the girls because they got their own tour to get back to
Apart from being a reward for her achvievements, it’s clearly not primarily about success on the Main Tour for Reanne but being an idol and encouragement for all female players. Therefore I don’t think losing hurts her that much, apart from the Allen match ofc, and yes she didnt’t win a match but she came ever so close and lost just because of the odd balls.
That’s a good way of putting it about her role on the main tour, but it’s also telling that she wins tournaments on one with highest breaks below 50. It continues highlighting the great difference in abilities though.
I’m sure it hurt Minks and On Yee. Bex Kenna is very competitive as well. But I agree that those who play on the main tour, shouldn’t play in the Women’s tour.
I personally can’t see any disadvantages when some female players play on both tours. And yes Csilla, the difference in abilities is there, we have to be patient with them but I think it’s worth mentioning here again that not long time ago women were prohibited to enter most? snooker halls/clubs and still are now for some?. And if they’re not anymore, just now when the sport became more open-minded regarding this point, it doesn’t help that very many clubs/halls are shutting down, forced or unforced. So letting elite females play on both tours seems like a fair trade-off or compensation for all the females to me.
Christian (and Monique before) are absolutely right about the importance the women’s tour offers to women given all the discrimination. But I can’t help but wonder if the way they can easily win on the women’s tour hinders their development to be competitive on the main tour. I mean this was a tournament with best of 7 in the final, so it should not be a question of stamina to win a few matches in a home nation tournament.
I don’t think that “stamina” is a factor. Actually, they might get better results in longer formats. Reanne beat Robin Hull by 10-8 at the World qualifiers in 2017, then lost 10-6 to Lee Walker, but Lee had been 6-0 up. On Yee is very resilient in long matches as well. On Yee lost by 10-6 to Alan McManus in 2019. It was a very close match though: here are the scores (Alan first): 50-74; 1-73; 71-7; 119(62,56)-25; 45-74; 40-58; 70-8; 61-7; 0-109; 70(63)-0; 33-76; 78-28; 80(51)-37; 61-13; 71-21; 76(54)-41.
I see. I assumed that as the women’s tour always had short matches, they weren’t used to longer ones and that caused a problem. Might be wrong though.
Congratulations Reanne! Is there video footage available, Monique?
I don’t think so Christian but will keep my eyes open just in case.
Thanks.