Look out men! Asia's snooker number one Ng takes aim
HONG KONG: Snooker world champion Ng On-yee has already made history -- last month she became the first Asian to top the women's world rankings.
Now the Hong Kong pioneer, who embarks on her world title defence in Malta this week, wants to change the image of the maledominated game and enable more women follow in her footsteps.
Instantly recognisable with her large round-rimmed spectacles, Ng, 27, is coy about her achievement, describing her ascent to number one last month as "a surprise" as she only found out from her coach Wayne Griffiths.
The milestone came after a record 2017 when she won her second world championship and six other titles. But Ng has no intention of stopping there -- now she is striving to make a mark on the men's circuit.
Ng became the first Asian woman to be invited to the men's world championship in 2016 and, although she lost in the first qualifying round, she still saw it as a valuable learning experience.
She is keen to dispel the image of snooker as a male-dominated sport saying that physical strength does not matter. "It is a mind game," Ng told AFP.
"To play the best game is to forget about winning and losing and try to apply what I've learnt from my daily training."
In February she finally overtook long-standing world number one England's Reanne Evans -- who had held top spot for a decade -after reaching the quarter-finals of the British Championships.
"Reaching number one is one step, maintaining the ranking is another," Ng said, pointing out the narrow points gap separating the top players.
"I try not to focus too much on it, because whether I'm the world number one or not, it shouldn't affect my game," she smiled ahead of defending her ranking and her title when the women's world championship begins in Malta on Wednesday.
She is part of a growing band of female snooker stars emerging in Hong Kong -- there are remarkably three other players from the southern Chinese city occupying spots in the women's world top 15.
Hong Kong's best-known men's player remains veteran Marco Fu -- one of Ng's idols. He is ranked 10th in the world and a former world championship semi-finalist, but the 40-year-old has been forced to take a break while he recovers from an eye problem.
The sport's popularity is also exploding in neighbouring mainland China which now hosts half a dozen men's world ranking events with the country's Ding Junhui, currently the world number four, was the first Asian to have reach world number one in 2016.
Ng says 40-year-old Fu is an inspiration and she sent a message urging him to rest after hearing he had undergone surgery for retinal degeneration in his left eye.
Her own trademark glasses are due to astigmatism in both eyes and she says the round lenses help her perfect her aim from a variety of angles.