Reanne Evans is an English snooker player and the reigning World Women's Snooker Champion. She has won the women's world title a record 12 times, with 10 consecutive titles between 2005 and 2014 and further wins in 2016 and 2019. She is ranked number one on the World Women's Snooker Tour. Evans received a wildcard to play on the main professional snooker tour during the 2010–11 season, but was unable to retain her place on the professional tour for subsequent seasons. In 2013, she qualified for the Wuxi Classic as an amateur competitor, becoming the first woman ever to reach the final stages of a ranking snooker tournament. She received a wildcard to the qualifying rounds of the World Snooker Championship in 2015, and from 2017–20. Her best performance was reaching the second qualifying round in 2017 by defeating Robin Hull. This made her the first woman ever to win a World Championship match.
Women's Snooker
World Ladies Billiards and Snooker/World Women's Snooker
Evans won the WLBSA/World Women's Snooker title each year from 2005 to 2014, and again in 2016 and 2019. Her total of twelve championship titles is a record, ahead of Allison Fisher's seven. At the age of 16 in 2002, Evans entered her first World Women's Snooker Championship and reached the semi-final, where she was defeated 0–4 by eventual champion Kelly Fisher. In the quarter-final, Evans had beaten third seed Lynette Horsburgh 4–3. She won her first ranking tournament, the Connie Gough Memorial Championship, in 2004. This was the only women's ranking event held in the 2003–04 season, and took place after Fisher, the top player in the rankings, had departed from the circuit to take up playing pool in the United States. Evans won her first world championship in 2005 with a 6–4 victory over Horsburgh in the final, which featured one frame that was replayed because of a problem with the scoring. She retained the title in 2006 just six weeks before she was due to give birth, defeating Emma Bonney 5–3 in the final. She also won the 2006 WLBSAmixed doubles title, partnering with Mark Allen to beat Sonia Chapman and Matthew Couch 3–0 in the final. Her loss to Maria Catalano at the 2011 Northern Classic brought to an end an unbeaten run of 90 women's snooker matches.
Evans won the IBSF world women's snooker championship in 2004, 2007, and 2008. She did not travel to the 2009 championship in Hyderabad to defend her title as the cost of travelling would have been more than the prize money she could have earnt.
After winning 61 consecutive women's matches and defeating reigning world championJohn Higgins 4–3 at the 2009 Six-red World Championship, Evans was awarded a wild card on the professional main tour for the 2010–11 season, enabling her to enter all ranking events at the qualifying stage. This made her the first woman to play on the main snooker tour since Allison Fisher in 1994–95. Evans failed to win a match throughout her season on the tour, suffering 18 consecutive defeats. She entered Q-School, but was unable to qualify for the main tour in the 2011–12 season. In the 2012–13 season, Evans won enough Q-School matches to earn a "top-up" place in the qualifying rounds for the 2013 Wuxi Classic, competing as an amateur. In her qualifying match, she defeated Thailand's Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 5–4 to become the first woman to reach the final stages of a professional ranking snooker tournament. Originally scheduled to play world number 2 Neil Robertson in the last 64, she then became one of four players selected to play an extra wildcard round against local Chinese opponents. She traveled to Wuxi and played Chinese teenager Zhu Yinghui in the wildcard round, but lost 2–5. In March 2015, Evans was awarded a place in the qualifying rounds of the 2015 World Snooker Championship. She lost her opening match 8–10 to 1997 world championKen Doherty. In the qualifying rounds for the 2017 World Snooker Championship, Evans defeated Robin Hull 10–8 in the first round. Evans stated that the victory was the best of her career, against an opponent she called "amazing". She lost 6–10 to Lee Walker in the second round of qualifying. In the qualifying rounds for the 2018 World Snooker Championship, she lost 7–10 to Dominic Dale in the first round. In the 2019 qualifiers, she lost 2–10 to Zhang Yong in the first round. She won the Women's Tour Championship 2019, held at the Crucible Theatre, by beating Nutcharut Wongharuthai in the semi-final and Ng On Yee 1–0 in the final.
Personal life
Born in Dudley, West Midlands, Evans was educated at Bishop Milner Catholic School, Dudley. She began playing snooker at age 13, inspired by her older brothers. In 2005, she began a relationship with Northern Irish professional snooker player Mark Allen, with whom she had a daughter, Lauren, born in 2006. Evans and Allen ended their relationship in 2008.
