Women’s snooker returns to Crucible for Tour Championship but deserves to be more than just a sideshow to men’s game
- England’s 12-time world champion Reanne Evans beats Hong Kong’s Ng On-yee in a single-frame Tour Championship final at the home of snooker
- For the first time since 2003, women’s snooker players play at the Crucible in a warm-up event for the men’s World Series Championship
Reanne Evans – the greatest women’s snooker player of all time – was ready to play her shot when she had to stop herself. Two waitresses holding plates of pad thai – Thailand’s signature dish – needed to pass.
Between the kitchen and the restaurant area were snooker tables and the waiting staff needed to interrupt play to do their jobs. Elsewhere at the Hi-End Snooker Club in Bangkok, staff, players and spectators milled around, some stopping before a player took a shot, others being hurried along by stewards. There was no “quiet please!”. The background sounds of cutlery and conversation were part of the silence.
Welcome to the Women’s World Championship – the tournament that decides the best female snooker player on the planet. But far from complaining, players, organisers and support staff hailed the 2019 event in June as the best ever.
“We are very happy with the venue,” said one World Snooker official. “This is by far the best we’ve had for a world championship in a long time. The facilities here are amazing compared to what we’ve had in the past.”
So, it must have been a major thrill for four select players – Evans, Hong Kong’s Ng On-yee, Thai star Nutcharut Wongharuthai and Rebecca Kenna – to play at the home of snooker, The Crucible theatre in Sheffield, over the weekend at the inaugural women’s Tour Championship.