Ng On Yee won the Australian Women’s Open for a second time with a 4-1 victory over Amee Kamani in Tuesday’s final.
Ng regained the title she previously captured in 2018 at the Mounties venue in Sydney.
The success represents her 18th career ranking title on the World Women’s Snooker Tour, although it ends a barren spell that dated back to April in 2022.
Indeed, the Hong Kong potter went through the entirety of the 2022/23 campaign without capturing any silverware.
However, Ng is now back in the winners enclosure after a dominant display Down Under.
The frame she lost in the final was the only one she surrendered throughout the entire four-day tournament.
The 32 year-old secured a hat-trick of 3-0 triumphs to comfortably top her group during the initial round-robin phase.
Ng then beat Lilly Meldrum with the same scoreline in the quarter-finals before defeating 2022 runner-up Jessica Woods 4-0 in the last four.
Kamani’s impressive run included knockout wins for the Indian against Christine Firth and and an eye-catching 4-0 drubbing of Mink Nutcharut.
Reigning champion Jamie Hunter didn’t compete in the 2023 edition of the Australian Women’s Open.
Reanne Evans, who won last month’s UK Women’s Championship for a record 12th time, and world champion Baipat Siripaporn also didn’t participate.
The next event on the World Women’s Snooker Tour calendar is the Eden Women’s Masters in November.
Frames Spots Bar in London will host the competition that was won by Nutcharut last season, when the Thai overcame Ng in the final.
2023 Australian Women’s Open
Quarter-Finals
Mink Nutcharut 3-0 Carlie Tait
Amee Kamani 3-0 Christine Firth
Jessica Woods 3-0 Lau Yuk Fan
Ng On Yee 3-0 Lilly Meldrum
Semi-Finals
Amee Kamani 4-0 Mink Nutcharut
Ng On Yee 4-0 Jessica Woods
Final
Ng On Yee 4-1 Amee Kamani
Featured photo credit: WWS
A very depleted field but you can only beat what’s in front of you. Ng On-Yee will no doubt be trying to secure a return to the main tour next season so I expect that she will enter everything on the women’s tour. The standard of which is very poor outside of the top 5. I still think that the On-Yee have a better account of herself on the main tour last time than any woman has before her. I hope that she can get one of the two guaranteed spots for next season. 5 top players into 4 means that someone will be missing out.
Is that according to your private “Top 5” or the official WWS ranking?
Bai Yulu (14) and Baipat (6) are outside of the official Top 5 (which is currently Mink Nutcharut, On Yee Ng, Reanne Evans, Rebecca Kenna and Jamie Hunter). I’d rate both of them above Kenna and Hunter, and Bai Yulu is imo the biggest talent in the women’s game.
Definitely my personal top five. The official rankings seem less relevant to me than they do on the main tour. Even there “class is permanent, form is temporary” applies and sometimes O’Sullivan for example drops down if he has a hiatus and players like Ali Carter and Marco Fu can subside due to external factors. I think that Bai Yulu looks to me to be the most promising talent too. Ng On-Yee is an all round player. I think that they are the two best and both are absent from the main tour this season. I’m unsure of Jamie Hunters prospects and Rebecca Kenna seems to accumulate points but doesn’t strike me as being anywhere near that top bracket of players. Reanne Evans seemed to suffer the distraction of her main tour card, and Siripaporn is still quite new to me: her world championship win seemed to be a scratchy tournament that year. I will wait to see how she goes over a longer time frame.