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Ssb - girls just wanna have funds
Spare a thought for Reanne Evans.While twin titans of the Crucible John Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan were launching the Betfred.com World Championship, which carries a first prize of £250,000, Evans was completing a 5-1 defeat of Maria Catalano, O'Sulivan's cousin, to win the women's world title and thus a clean sweep of every ladies event this season.
Her reward for winning the biggest prize in the women's game? £1,000.
Women's snooker looked like it may take off in a big way in the late 1980s when Allison Fisher ruled the roost.
Fisher was an excellent player who beat Neal Foulds and Mike Hallett in the Matchroom (now Premier) League.
Barry Hearn (yes, him again) got a couple of women's world championships television coverage but the brutal truth was that the standard was not of the level TV audiences were used to.
Fisher wisely recognised that she had to move on and headed to the USA where she has made a very good living on the 9-ball pool circuit.
Karen Corr and Kelly Fisher have since joined her, leaving Evans as the outstanding player of the current time.
The WPBSA used to subsidise women's events but withdrew this support in the financial crisis that hit soon after the Altium bid was rejected in 2002.
Cut adrift, the WLBSA have done a good job in keeping afloat and maintaining a circuit. Such enthusiasts should be saluted, including Paul Wood, a billiards and snooker fan who provided sponsorship money for the World Championship.
Evans should also receive credit for winning the title for a sixth year in succession but her achievement will, in truth, pass by virtually unnoticed by the wider world.
There's no sign of a massive cash injection for the women's game, which would go some way to increasing participation and providing more challengers to Evans's dominance.
Hearn yesterday claimed that snooker's Crucible World Championship could one day - long into the future in my view - have a first prize of £1m.
The women's game would settle for a lot less than that.
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