World Snooker has announced that women's world champion Reanne Evans will take on the men in a bid to qualify for the World Snooker Championship.
The 29-year-old, who has won 10 successive women's world titles, needs to win three matches at Sheffield's Ponds Forge in April to qualify for the main event at the Crucible, also in Sheffield.
If she does so, she will become the first woman to compete in the World Championship, having become the first woman to qualify for any ranking event last season when she got through to the main stage of the Wuxi Classic in China.
Writing on Facebook, Evans said: "So please to finally be able to say I've been given a place in this years world championship!!! 3 wins and I'll be at the crucible!!! Thanks to all my fans and sponsors x"
If Evans won just one of her qualifying matches it would carry prize money of £6,000 - a fee comfortably more than what she gets for winning the women's world championship.
Pascal Lemesre
