Reanne Evans

Reanne Evans (born 25 October 1985) is an English professional snooker player and a regular pundit for televised snooker coverage. She also competes on the World Women's Snooker Tour, where she is the current women's world number one. She received an MBE in the 2020 Birthday Honours for her services to women's snooker.
Born in Dudley, West Midlands, Evans began playing snooker at age 14, influenced by her older brothers. She competed in her first World Women's Snooker Championship in 2002, aged 16, when she reached the semi-finals. She went on to become the most successful female player in the sport's history, winning a record 12 women's world titles, including 10 consecutively between 2005 and 2014, breaking the previous record of seven set by Allison Fisher. Evans also set records by winning 12 UK Women's Snooker Championships, 58 ranking titles on the women's tour overall, and 90 consecutive victories in women's matches between 2008 and 2011. She has achieved the highest break on the women's tour, having made 140 twice.
Evans received a wildcard to the professional World Snooker Tour for the 2010–11 season, becoming the first woman to compete professionally since Fisher 16 years previously, but was relegated at the end of the season after 18 consecutive defeats. In 2013, she qualified for the Wuxi Classic as an amateur competitor, becoming the first woman to reach the final stages of a professional ranking snooker tournament. She received wildcards to the World Snooker Championship qualifying rounds in 2015 and from 2017–21; her best performance was reaching the second qualifying round in 2017 after defeating Finnish player Robin Hull 10–8.
On International Women's Day in 2021, the World Snooker Tour announced that the two top-ranked players on the women's tour—then Evans and Ng On-yee—would receive two-year professional tour cards to begin in the 2021–22 season. Evans's only victory during her two years on tour came at the 2023 Snooker Shoot Out (2022–23 season), when she defeated Stuart Bingham in the last 128, becoming the first woman to win a televised match at a ranking event. She lost her professional tour card when she ended the 2022–23 season in 126th place in the snooker world rankings. However, she ended the season at number one in the women's world rankings, which secured her a new two-year professional tour card to begin in the 2023–24 season.
Women's snooker
World Ladies Billiards and Snooker/World Women's Snooker
Aged 16 in 2002, Evans competed in her first World Women's Snooker Championship. She defeated third seed Lynette Horsburgh 4–3 in the quarter-finals but lost 0–4 to eventual champion Kelly Fisher in the semi-finals. 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, after Fisher, then the top female player in the rankings, had departed from the circuit to play nine-ball 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 WLBSA mixed doubles title, partnering with Mark Allen to beat Sonia Chapman and Matthew Couch 3–0 in the final.
She went on to win the World Women's Snooker Championship 10 consecutive times from 2005 to 2014, and claimed the title again in 2016 and 2019. Her total of 12 women's world titles is a record, ahead of Allison Fisher's seven.
Her loss to Maria Catalano at the 2011 Northern Classic brought to an end an unbeaten run of 90 women's snooker matches.
She won the 2019 Women's Tour Championship, held at the Crucible Theatre, beating Nutcharut Wongharuthai in the semi-finals and Ng On-yee in the final.
In September 2021, following an 18-month suspension of the Women's Snooker Tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Evans won the 2021 UK Women's Championship, defeating Rebecca Kenna 4–0 in the final. In November 2021, she was runner-up to Ng in the Eden Women's Masters, losing the final 3–4 after having led 3–1. In January 2022, she lost 3–4 to Wongharuthai in the final of the British Women's Open. At the 2022 World Women's Snooker Championship in February, Evans was the defending champion, but she lost 1–4 to Belgian player Wendy Jans in the quarter-finals, the first time she had not reached at least the semi-finals of the tournament. She retained her number one place in the women's world rankings at the end of the 2021–22 season, although Ng and Wongharuthai closed the gap in ranking points.
International Billiards and Snooker Federation
Evans won the IBSF 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 earned.
European Billiards and Snooker Association
Evans won the EBSA European Snooker Championship in 2007 and 2008.
World Snooker Tour
After winning 61 consecutive women's matches and defeating reigning world champion John Higgins 4–3 at the 2009 Six-red World Championship, Evans was awarded a wildcard on the professional 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 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 Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 5–4 to become the first woman to reach the final stages of a ranking snooker tournament. Originally scheduled to play world number two 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 lost 2–5 to Chinese teenager Zhu Yinghui in the wildcard round.
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 champion Ken Doherty.
In the qualifying rounds for the 2017 World Snooker Championship, Evans defeated Robin Hull 10–8 in the first round, calling the victory the best of her career to that point. She lost 6–10 to Lee Walker in the second round of qualifying. In the next four world championships, she exited in the first qualifying round each year, losing 7–10 to Dominic Dale in 2018, 2–10 to Zhang Yong in 2019, 3–6 to Andy Hicks in 2020, and 2–6 to Hicks in 2021.
At the 2019 Champion of Champions, Evans became the first female player to compete in the event. She lost 3–4 to Shaun Murphy in the first round, after coming back from 0–3 down to force a deciding frame.
On International Women's Day in 2021, World Snooker announced that Evans and Ng On-yee, the top-two players in the women's world rankings, would receive two-year invitational tour cards to commence in the 2021–22 snooker season. In the second ranking event of the season, the British Open, Evans was drawn in the first round against Mark Allen, her former partner and father of her daughter, with whom she had a strained relationship following a dispute over child support. Evans refused Allen's offer of a handshake before the match began. She took a 2–1 lead and led 60–22 in the fourth frame, but Allen came back to win 3–2. Evans did not win any matches during her season on the tour, which ended with a 2–6 defeat to Lee Walker in the first round of qualifying for the 2022 World Snooker Championship. Following her loss to Walker, Evans posted on social media that the "last year or so has been tough on and off [the] table" but that she was "working on it". At the end of the 2021–22 season, Evans was entered into the Snooker Hall of Fame, along with Allison Fisher, for "outstanding contributions to the growth of snooker".
The 2022–23 snooker season saw Evans again fare poorly on the main tour, winning only one match when she defeated Stuart Bingham by 60 points to 8 in their one-frame encounter at the 2023 Snooker Shoot Out (2022–23 season). This made her the first woman to win a televised match at a ranking snooker tournament. After losing in the first qualifying round of the 2023 World Snooker Championship, Evans ended the season ranked 126th in the snooker world rankings and was relegated from the professional tour. However, she was runner-up in the 2023 British Women's Open the following month, which enabled her to end the season ranked number one in the World Women's Snooker rankings. This secured her a new two-year professional tour card to begin in the 2023–24 season.
Personal life
Born in Dudley, West Midlands, Evans was educated at Bishop Milner Catholic School, Dudley. She began playing snooker at age 14, 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 Sophie, born at Russells Hall Hospital in May 2006. Both parents were aged 20 when their daughter was born. Evans and Allen ended their relationship in 2008. The end of their relationship was described as acrimonious and led to further legal disputes between the two players over child maintenance payments. Allen in 2022 noted that he no longer sees his daughter Lauren, but said "I still think about her all the time".
Performance and rankings timeline
World Snooker Tour
World Women's Snooker
Career finals
Women's finals: 89 (74 titles)
English snooker players
1985 births
Living people
Female snooker players
Sportspeople from Dudley
Members of the Order of the British Empire