‘It’s not like golf or tennis, but snooker is growing’
Rebecca Kenna is ready for a life-changing opportunity when the main tour opens up to women next season, writes Jeremy Wilson
When snooker’s world championship reaches the end of its 17-day Crucible marathon on Monday, the winner will be presented with a cheque for £500,000. It has been some progression since the first time the tournament was staged at the iconic Sheffield venue in 1977, when John Spencer walked away with a £6,000 winner’s prize.
Yet it is a figure that still strikes a chord even 45 years later. The world women’s championship was held just down the road from the Crucible at the Ding Junhui Snooker Academy in February, and £6,000 was the exact same prize which went to the new champion, Thailand’s Nutcharut Wongharuthai.
A time lag of almost half a century? Perhaps, when you consider that some snooker venues, which are run as private members’ clubs, remain no-go areas to women even to this day.
But there is tangible light on the horizon.
The main professional tour, with the likes of Ronnie O’sullivan, Judd Trump and Neil Robertson as its flag-bearers, has been proactively opened to the women and, for the first time, next season will see as many as four players going head-to-head with men on an almost weekly basis.
One of those is Rebecca Kenna, a 33-year-old from Yorkshire, who believes that the decision will, in an instant, propel women’s snooker forward by a decade, after it was so impacted by the pandemic. This year’s world women’s championship, after all, was the first since Reanne Evans won her 12th title back in 2019.
“I think we have gained 10 years in growing women’s snooker through having this tour card availability – it is an amazing opportunity,” says Kenna, who intends to practise full-time in an attempt to maximise the two seasons that she will have to climb into the world’s top 64 and maintain her place on the main tour.
It is a huge challenge and, at this point, it is perhaps worth adding a reality check with regard to snooker prize money. Yes, at the very top there are eye-catching prizes, but look down the world-ranking list and you can see that it is far from an easy way to make a living.
Matthew Stevens, for example, who has reached two Crucible finals, has dropped to 55th on the main tour for the one-year rankings, collecting total prize money up until the world championship of £30,000.
Evans and Ng On-yee were the first women players to be invited on the main tour last year and have so far won £3,000 between them.
The decision to accept the tour card is therefore based on Kenna’s ambition and desire to follow her dreams rather than any particular financial expectation. Indeed, when you add in travel and accommodation, just breaking even would be a huge success.
She owns and runs a snooker centre in Keighley but, from Monday, there will be a major change to her routine. “I ran my shop and coached full-time and I was a part-time player,” she says. “Now I have got this opportunity, I am going to give it 100 per cent. I have employed someone to run the shop. I will be away practising full-time.
“I’m quite lucky my husband can support me financially to an extent and that I have my shop. Earnings-wise it is really hard lower down. It is nothing like tennis or golf, but obviously snooker is growing. I am thankful for the opportunity. I will try to get some sponsors just to help pay the expenses.”
The situation is even more stark on the women’s tour, which has events as far afield as Australia, Thailand and the United States. “You are basically playing for fun because you love the sport and want to win trophies,” she says.
“If you win the tournament, you might just break even. It’s hard work but to have pro players on the women’s circuit will definitely help to grow the women’s game. It will mean more visibility and hopefully bring in more sponsorship.”
The perennial question, of course, is whether it is possible in a sport such as snooker for a woman to compete equally with men at the very top of the game. Kenna accepts that “we are probably not at that quality yet, we are probably a
‘On the women’s tour you are basically playing for fun. If you win the tournament you might just break even’
few years behind” and stresses the enormous historic differences with regard simply to access and participation.
She first took up snooker because it was a shared passion with her father, and they would play together in the local league. He died in 2015 and, having never expected to take the sport seriously, Kenna began practising harder to help cope with the grief. “It was a way of dealing with it,” she says.
“You have to concentrate and that was the favourite thing that we did together. After work, we just went and played snooker. It is a sport that takes your mind off things and it helped me get through that.”
The extra practice would, in turn, lead to competing more seriously, and she is now No 4 in the world women’s rankings.
“There obviously have been barriers to why women haven’t picked up a cue and given it a go,” she says. “It’s all male-dominated. Even just always seeing men on TV – women aren’t going to say, ‘I can do that’. We just need to get participation up and then really see if women can compete.”
And does she think it is possible for a woman to compete on equal terms?
“I’ve always believed that, with my ability, I can compete,” she says. “If we test ourselves with 50-50 participation, and we are coming out bottom, I may have a different belief. Until I see that, I have to believe that we can compete.
“Obviously our bodies are different. Our brains work differently to males. In terms of pool, or billiards, or pretty much any other sport, it is always separate. It will be a good test to see if we can cut it at professional level.
“At the minute you can say it is due to participation. A big thing in snooker is concentration. When I get to bed, I’m thinking about a million things and can’t get to sleep. My husband’s head hits the pillow and he is asleep.
“It will be interesting if someone can do a test and see if there are other barriers. It will be good to see. All we can do is make the most of the opportunity.”