It feels like a while since the Women’s World Championship. It was when Reanne Evans emerged as champion, beating Thai teenager Nutcharut Wongharuthai 6-3 in Bangkok. A couple of weeks ago, we have the first ranking event too, with Reanne Evans again winning the UK Women’s Snooker Championship for the ninth time.
There are a few talking points in the Women’s Snooker Tour. We have five ranking events still to go, according to the Women’s Snooker website. The next one is in the lovely country of Australia, where Hong Kong’s Ng On-yee will be looking to defend her title in the 2019 Australian Women’s Open.
So, what’s the gossip?
Who can stop Reanne Evans?
Reanne Evans seems to be on a rampage at the moment. She began her hot streak when she won the 2018 Masters in November. Since then, she won the Belgian Women’s Open, Women’s World 10 Red Championship, Women’s 6 Red World Championship, Women’s World Championship, Women’s Tour Championship and finally, the UK Women’s Championship. That’s an 11-month unbeaten run on the World Women’s Snooker Tour and seven consecutive. Reanne is sitting comfortably at the top of the rankings with 84,588 points. That’s over 20,000 ahead of her main rival Ng On-yee.
So how did this sudden domination come about? This isn’t new in Reanne’s world, as she won the World World Championship ten times in a row until Ng On-yee stole her crown in 2015. Now that the Women’s Snooker was revamped and improved and the competition increased, it is possible that Reanne had to up her game. As well as more playing time, she spent more time being invited to events outside of the tour as well. In 2019, this includes the Snooker Shoot-Out, the World Championship and more recently, the 6-Reds World Championship. She also qualified for the Champion of Champions, which beings this November.
But who can stop her? The obvious contender is Ng On-yee, but we mustn’t forget who else threatened her streak. Both Mei Mei Fong and Wendy Jans took Reanne to deciders in the UK Championship and Belgian Women’s Open. The last person to beat her was Katrina Wan in the 2018 Australian Women’s Snooker Open. With Wongharuthai progressing rapidly, she is expected to be a greater problem for Evans in the coming few months.
Can Ng On-yee get back on track?
This may be a slight exaggeration, since every player goes through a lukewarm spell. By her standards, Ng On-yee is on one at the moment.
However, it is a surprise how quickly Evans took the crown away from her. Let’s not forget: Ng is a three-time World Champion. She held onto the No. 1 spot for a very long time. Even when she won the 2018 World title, she phenomenally didn’t even concede a single frame. Yet since she won the 2018 Australian Women’s Snooker Open, she hasn’t won a title since.
But it’s not as if she had a huge dip in form. Ng is comfortably second in the rankings, over 12,000 points ahead of No. 3 seed Rebecca Kenna. She reached three finals, as well as two quarter-final appearances. Interestingly, the only players who have defeated her were Evans and Wongharuthai. She hasn’t suffered any shock losses at all, so it seems Ng needs their scalps to regain her confidence.
She also has the same benefits as Reanne Evans in terms of tournament time. Even though she failed to progress past the group stage, she was competitive among a very tough crowd of Mark Williams, Graeme Dott and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. In the fact World Championship Qualifiers, her contests were dominated by the opposition with one-sided scorelines, so there will be a lot of confidence to take from those results onto this tour.
Will the other players step up to the plate and win ranking titles?
The battle between Reanne Evans and Ng On-yee is incredible. So much so that the last time a player won a ranking title that wasn’t the pair mentioned was in February 2017. Maria Catalano won the title for the Connie Gough Memorial Trophy for the sixth time, by beating Rebecca Grainger (now Kenna) 4-2. It’s been over two and a half years.
So who are the main contenders? Well, the obvious contender is Catalano, who reached the quarter-finals in most of her past events. She recently reached the final of the UK Women’s Championship, the first ranking event of the season.
Other players who are greater threats include Wongharuthai and Kenna. Both players have been banging on the door to win a title for a while now. The young Thai player started reaching finals last season and she was able to dislodge the two-time defending champion Ng to reach her first World final. Kenna has reached three finals in her career, two last season where she was stopped by Evans and Ng. Very recently, she won an inaugural non-ranking event called the Hong Kong World Women’s Masters title. The full report is here. To find out more about Kenna, read our interview by clicking on this link here.
Anymore for any more? Laura Evans and Katrina Wan both reached a ranking final too. In the Hong Kong World Women’s Masters, world under-21 women’s champion Bai Yulu reached the final, losing to Kenna. The 16-year-old Chinese prospect casted quite an impression and is eyeing world snooker domination. Emma Parker is also a star of the future. She reached her first semi-final in the 2018 Eden Women’s Masters and she has a long career ahead of her. To plug in another interview, here’s one I did with Emma!
The Australian Women’s Open
But who knows? It might be the very next tournament! The Australian Women’s Open is held between 17th – 20th October. They feature three Top 16 players, including Ng, Wongharuthai and Jaique Ip Wan In. The group draws are found here via snooker.org.
