Duchess of pool shoots for the top

13 April 2012

Way back in 1990 Barry Hearn told Allison Fisher she would be snooker's first millionairess within five years. Eleven years on Fisher laughs at the memory.

"It didn't happen," she said. "Women's snooker never went anywhere so that made it impossible. There was never enough depth in it, never enough good players.

"It's very hard to play as well as the men if you're not playing opponents of that standard all the time, but I'm working on that million now. I'm getting there. I need the stock market to rebound, and then it might happen."

Fisher does not earn her living at snooker anymore. Nor does she live in Britain. In fact, she isn't even bestknown by her own name.

Since 1995 she has been earning a very respectable crust on the women's pool circuit in the United States, where she is known as - honestly - the Duchess of Doom.

"We've all got our wrestling names over there," she grinned. "There's the Texas Tornado, the Irish Invader, the GForce, the Striking Viking.

"And there's me. I got the name because they wanted something with English overtones, but names with queen and princess in were already taken so I was demoted to a duchess. Then they added doom because opponents-fear me at the table. I know the Duchess of Doom sounds like Anne Robinson but I'm not as mean as her. In fact I don't dress like a duchess and I'm not very doom-like really."

All this is said with a good deal of laughter. It is not difficult to see why 33-year-old Fisher is such a hit with the Americans.

Between today and Sunday, her fellow Britons have a chance to see her in action in the Ladbrokes.com World Masters Pool at, of all places, Lakeside Shopping Centre near Thurrock. Sixteen of the world's leading pool players are competing, and 15 of them are men.

"It will be a first for me in pool, although I used to be the only woman in snooker often," she said, without a trace of a US accent despite six years as a resident of Charlotte, North Carolina.

"Steve Davis is among the competitors this weekend. Everyone has as good a chance as anyone else.

"I've never played in a venue like Lakeside before. I'm told the arena holds 300 and there are balconies where shoppers can stop and look.

She continued: "Snooker's great to watch at the highest level, but pool is far more fun and exciting, and the games are very quick. So from a spectators' point of view, even if you don't know much about the game you can get into it very easily.

"Pool is much more relaxed with a fun atmosphere. Normally I play in casinos and clubs. The audience is usually between 500 and 2,000, and all the tournaments are televised. I get recognised quite a lot over there."

Yet six years after she quit snooker, Fisher agrees she remains the only female player most people over here have heard of.

She said: "I stopped snooker because I wasn't motivated any more. My best wins were probably when I played in the Matchroom League and I beat Neal Foulds, Tony Drago and Mike Hallett. That was good exposure for me.

"But I couldn't see my future in it and there wasn't much money. People had been telling me about the pool scene in America for a long time.

"The women's game is quite glamorous over there. You won't see as many good-looking women at the top level of most sports as you do in ours.

"When I was playing snooker over here women in the game were still frowned upon."

She added: "I have a good life now, certainly better than anything I would have been doing over here. I'll stay in America permanently now. I don't have anything to come back to for. Pool has totally changed my life."

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