Jamie Hunter has won her first ranking title with victory in the US Women’s Snooker Open on Sunday in Seattle.
The Englishwoman secured the biggest triumph of her career so far with a 4-1 defeat of pre-tournament favourite Rebecca Kenna in the final.
Hunter comfortably advanced from the initial round-robin phase with four successive 2-0 wins to earn a spot in the quarter-finals.
The women’s world number 12 subsequent recorded another whitewash scoreline, beating America’s Frances Tso 3-0 in the last eight.
A first frame of the tournament was lost in the semi-finals, but Hunter still dominated opponent Mary Talbot-Deegan in a 4-1 victory.
Kenna, who is competing on the Main Tour this season as a professional, enjoyed a similarly smooth progress to the title-deciding match.
Indeed, the 33 year-old didn’t drop a single frame en route to the final, and she would have been highly fancied to go on and land the title.
But Hunter, who lost 4-3 to Kenna in the final of the English Women’s Snooker Championship this year, got off to the better start by winning the first two frames.
Kenna got on the scoreboard in frame three, but after taking an important fourth frame Hunter got the job done in the fifth for a breakthrough glory.
Top women players Reanne Evans, Ng On Yee, and Mink Nutcharut did not participate in the tournament – the first to be played in the United States.
US Women’s Snooker Open
Results
Quarter-finals
Jamie Hunter 3-0 Frances Tso
Mary Talbot-Deegan 3-0 Liu Jing
Emma Parker 3-0 Diana Schuler
Rebecca Kenna 3-0 Mary Avina
Semi-finals
Jamie Hunter 4-1 Mary Talbot-Deegan
Rebecca Kenna 4-0 Emma Parker
Final
Jamie Hunter 4-1 Rebecca Kenna
Featured photo credit: WWS
Congratulations to Jamie Hunter on winning her first WWS title. Kenny was a warm favourite this week so to beat her 4-1 was impressive.
I’m still concerned the standard of women’s snooker is not improving enough. Not a single 50 break in the last seven matches is evidence of this, albeit without the top 3 in attendance. However, even last season’s World Championship was short on fifty plus contributions during the knockout phase. There’s more competition for Reanne Evans these days but it’s not having the affect on overall standards that we’d all like to have see.
Well Jamie is a man… so the standard of womens play there isn’t really up for discussion
what’s a man doing in the women’s draw?
As my granny used to say, it’s a man’s world! Failed as a male snooker player so just pretend to be a woman!
I see two men in this picture. No men in women’s sports.
Quite agree.
Utterly disgraceful remarks underneath my constructive point about the general standard. Snooker HQ doesn’t deserve to be sullied by these remarks.
What’s disgraceful is a male being allowed to play in female sport, taking their prize money, sponsorship and titles. Very apparent only reason is because he was a shit in the mens game. Your constructive point regarding standards, why don’t we let more men play on the women’s tour so that the standard goes up…what do you think?
What the heck is a man doing in the women’s competition? Are you out of your minds? Why are you doing this to women why?? I’m disgusted.
What a dishonest cowardly report. A man takes a women’s prize and all you can do is lie to your readers, concealing the single most important thing about him, that he is a man. Issue a correction and do better in the future.
Prior to this, Jamie spent five years failing to progress beyond the MEN’s amateur snooker league in Widnes, all of a sudden he/she’s a hero
Why are you letting men into the women’s competition? There is no women’s snooker if men are allowed in. This is absurd. Men who fail at men’s sports are allowed to join the women’s??? It’s ridiculous, it’s offensive. It’s womanface, just like blackface. Women are not a costume or feelings in a man’s head!
The argument about trans people competing in sport is a nuanced one. I believe a solution has to be found to include all within sports but clearly in physical sports that has to be balanced against maintaining as fair a playing field as possible. However, in snooker, this is not an issue as snooker is a sport where all can compete against each other regardless of gender.
I hope Jamie Hunter didn’t read this thread as much of what was said is hurtful, offensive and, in some cases, enough to be classed as hate speech.
Jay Brannon it is not hate speech to correctly identify someone’s sex. And if snooker is a sport where, as you claim, ‘all can compete against each other regardless of gender’ (and it’s clear when you wrote ‘gender’ you meant ‘biological sex’) then why are there separate men’s and women’s competitions?