I had my all England university ladies pool tournament in Derby last Friday. I have only been seriously playing pool for a year so I didn't have high hopes. Me, Angie and Jenna were the only women in the pool club so we alone could compete. Angie is a great player, I already knew that but Jenna and me are newbs so we had to wait a nd see..

Some friends of mine said prior to the tournament 'it's for WOMEN, they won't be able to play well anyway'. I am happy to say defiantly that after being in both men's and ladie's tournaments in the same location, I found that all girls were as good as the guys (some of them even looked like lads lol) and some were better than most guys I saw in the tournament.

First, we had to play the individuals. I won two games and got in the quarter finals. Then I lost to a very lucky player. I have to say this, I was much better than the lass but she kept getting lucky and potting after clipping my balls. She even admitted that she didn't mean to do the shots she did. So after 4 wins I was out of the competition ranking somewhere between 9th-16th out of 50 odd girls competing. I am well chuffed about that.

After that was the first half of the team league. We all played amazingly and I won each and every one of my games. We beat Edge Hill 4-1 and Gloucester 4-0. Next day we played York and drew 3-3 and went in the quarter finals. We were unlucky enough to have to play Oxford firsts (the tournament favorites and most unpopular, snootiest people you'd meet) when we lost 4-0 (all frames lost were down to the black) and the second game was against Oxford seconds where again all games were down to the black and we had a massive headstart in a few frames that bad luck took away from us. In one of my games, I did an amazing snooker on the opponent's last ball, doubling one of my balls so that the white lands behind the black in a perfect straight line with hers making it a perfect snooker. I was unlucky enough that the double potted my ball. It was an impossible shot to do if I WANTED to pot it. I had to ruin my snooker after that because she'd have two shots with a free ball, in which she'd just knock the black out of the way. Angie was on the black, six balling the opponent and had to cut the black gently in. She was unlucky cause the black stopped right in front of the pocket. The girl cleared all her balls and had the black already right in front of the pocket so we lost that game too. Two games at least, robbed off us.
So we were out. Still, we made it to the quarter finals and only got beat by Oxford. In the end Oxford occupied all three top places and had to play each other. The singles were won by two Oxford girls in first and third place and a girl from Essex in second.

All of us played amazingly and got attention from the tournament organising and supervising team and even got complimented on our strong team. All in all that was an awesome tournament and I am proud of all of us.