Ladies Day will take place at the Dafabet World Championship this Thursday, April 24th, at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.
World Snooker and WPBSA introduced the initiative last year with the intention to get more women involved in snooker, as players, fans and officials.
The day will also aim to raise money for World Snooker’s official charity, Bluebell Wood Children’s Hospice. Coffee and cake packages will be sold at the Crucible for £2.50, with £1 from every sale going to the hospice in Sheffield. There will be free coaching for women in CueZone in the Winter Garden with Reanne Evans making an appearance, along with Sports Co-ordinator Kelly Macphail from Salford City College.
Purple is the colour of the day – matching Bluebell Wood’s logo – and all fans are encouraged to wear something purple to show their support. All women taking part will be given an exclusive Bluebell Wood goodie bag as a thank you for acknowledging the charity.
WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson said: “We were delighted with the response to the first Ladies Day last year. It adds an element of fun to the day while generating interest in snooker, and raising money for a great cause as well.
“We are very keen to get more women involved in our sport, especially as we are one of the few sports with total fairness in terms of who can participate.
“Through our CueZone Into Schools programme which has seen fantastic success since it was launched a year ago, we are getting tens of thousands of boys and girls playing snooker. Hopefully in years to come this will produce some very talented female players who can compete on the World Snooker Tour. There’s no reason why women can’t succeed in snooker, it’s purely a matter of increasing the participation levels at grass-roots.
“One of our biggest long-term goals is to get snooker into the Olympics, and generating more interest in the sport among women is an important part of that process.
“There are opportunities for everyone in snooker now and I’m keen to see Ladies Day become a regular event during the World Championship.”
Reanne Evans is the nine-time Ladies World Champion and made snooker history this season as the first woman to qualify for the final stages of a world ranking event. She beat Thailand’s Thepchaiya Un-Nooh to make it to the final stages of the Wuxi Classic in China, before losing to Zhu Yinghui.
“In the past, women haven’t had the same chances as men to play snooker,” said Evans. “Hopefully that is changing and we will see more women playing snooker and competing at a high level.”
