Reanne Evans hopes to build profile of women's snooker ahead of Wixu Classic match against Neil Robertson

A formal letter had to be sent to the club committee before it would deign to relax its rule.

Evans, 27, still finds the memory of it “horrendous” but is hoping her achievement in a snooker hall in Gloucester on Tuesday will strike a blow against the gender inequality she has experienced throughout her career since she first picked up a cue at the age of 13.

Her battling 5-4 victory over Thailand’s world No 69, Thepchaiya Un Nooh, guaranteed her place in the last 64 at next month’s Wixu Classic in China, making her the first woman to reach the final televised stages of a ranking tournament.

Her next opponent will be world No 2 Neil Robertson and, whatever the result, she is determined to make the most of her opportunity in the spotlight to put women’s snooker on the map.

“At the minute I don’t think it’s sunk in, but I’ve just got to try and enjoy myself and take in the experience, which is all going to be new to me,” she said.

“It will be my first time in China and more than likely I’ll be on TV. I imagine there’ll be quite a lot of media interest. Apparently, I’m quite popular out there because they have a lot of lady players.

"It will be good to do some interviews and try to build up my profile and, of course, ladies’ snooker in general.”

Women’s snooker is certainly in dire need of publicity. Evans has won the women’s world title a remarkable nine years in a row but has received negligible media coverage compared to her male counterparts.

As for prize money, the women’s game exists in a different world. While Ronnie O’Sullivan pocketed a cheque for £250,000 for his World Championship victory at the Crucible, Evans’ ninth world title last month was rewarded with a prize of £400.

“It’s shocking, really,” she said. “The first year I won the world title I won £1,500 but it’s been going down and down. It went to £1,000, then £800 and now it’s gone down to £400.

“There are just no sponsorships, which also means there’s a lack of entries because people can’t afford to come from different places around the world to play in it.”

Even if Evans loses to Robertson in China, she is guaranteed £3,000, and she is hoping it will be just the start of bigger things to come.

“I don’t want people to say it was just a one-off and just a lucky thing that I made it through,” she said.

Evans, who lives in Dudley and has a six-year-old daughter, Lauren, with former partner Mark Allen, the world No 7, grew up in a snooker-mad family and older brother Ryan very nearly made it onto the tour.

It was while following Ryan to tournaments as a teenager that she had her first experience of the chauvinism that still lingers in certain clubs.

“Ryan was playing a competition and I went along to watch,” she said. “I wasn’t even playing, but someone said I wasn’t allowed in.

“My brother said, ‘Are you joking? She comes with me to every match’, but they said, ‘No, sorry, she’s not allowed in’.

“In the end, one of the committee guys came along and said, ‘If she sits in the corner and doesn’t have a drink then we’ll let her in’. When I went in, there were women serving behind the bar but they weren’t actually allowed in the room where the snooker was being played.”

After failing to qualify for the tour through Q School, Evans has benefited from a new format introduced by World Snooker that requires players to compete in a preliminary round of 128 to decide the 64 places in the televised section of most of the ranking tournaments. Because not all of the 128 spots for the Wixu Classic were filled, Evans was given a ‘top-up place’ by virtue of her ranking.

World Snooker chairman Barry Hearn said Evans’ success was “marvellous news” and an inspiration for female players.

“Reanne has come back from 4-3 down to win 5-4 against a pretty good player, so she’s there totally on merit, which is very important,” he said. “It’s not like she’s a wildcard or a shoo-in or a nominal lady player, which is always dangerous.”