REBECCA Kenna is confident a ranking event win is on the horizon after retaining her Yorkshire Ladies Snooker Championship title.
The Keighley star defeated Shannon Metcalf for the second consecutive year, recording a 3-0 victory at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds.
The win follows Kenna's success in Hong Kong the previous week where she battled her way through the top 16 players in the women's game to pick up the trophy.
Although, the competition wasn't one of the prestigious ranking events, Kenna, 30, hopes these successive wins has placed her in a great position to battle for glory in the Eden Women's Masters next month.
She said: "It was nice to retain it (the Yorkshire title). I am good friends with Shannon and she is a really good player.
"She is just coming back from an injury so wasn’t on the top of her game.
"She gave me too many chances which she doesn’t normally, I was a lot more settled in the final.
"With it being on my doorstep, I will always play in it. I like to play in any tournaments nearby to keep me fresh for the women’s tour.
"That was a really big event to win (Hong Kong Masters). I was quite shocked that I did win it and hopefully it shows that I can mix it with the top players and that a ranking event win isn’t too far off.
"In three weeks we have a ranking event down south in Coulsdon which I am hoping to do well there.
"I am just hitting the practice table and getting ready for that one.
"I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself but I do feel more relaxed if I was to get into a final now because I proved that I could do it with lots of people watching."
Exposure has always been a problem for the women's game competing in a majority male dominated sport.
The amateur tour which features the likes of Kenna and Reanne Evans is trying to gain a bigger audience by increasing the number of players and events.
Kenna believes she can act as a role model in encouraging more women to take up the game.
She added: "We are starting to see a rise in the publicity in more people playing and hopefully the game will evolve if we can get more sponsorship and more money to be then classed as professional. That might be a few years off yet but any exposure is good.
"I would like to help the women's game grow to become its own rather than say there is only one professional circuit.
"I think it is important that everyone tries to grow the game, getting young people seeing us and picking up a cue. I suppose I am a bit of an ambassador."
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