Maria Catalano

Catalano attended secondary school at Hillcrest Community College, Netherton, West Midlands.^[3] She began playing snooker in working men's clubs when she was 15 and received coaching from her first cousin, professional player Ronnie O'Sullivan.^[4] She made her World Women's Snooker Tour debut in 1998.^[5] She has since won 11 women's ranking titles,^[5] including the Connie Gough Trophy six times, the 2007 British Women's Open, and the 2012 UK Women's Championship.^[6][7] In 2003, she ended Kelly Fisher's 69-match, two-year winning streak on the women's tour by defeating her 3–1 in the quarter-finals of the East Anglian Open.^[8][9] In 2011, she ended Reanne Evans's record 90-match, three-year winning streak with a 3–1 victory in the semi-finals of the Northern Championship.^[9]

A five-time runner-up in the World Women's Snooker Championship, Catalano lost the 2009, 2010, 2012, and 2013 finals to Reanne Evans and the 2018 final to Ng On-yee.^[10][11] At the 2012 event, she made her highest break on the women's tour, a 116 in her semi-final match against Tatjana Vasiljeva.^[5] She was ranked world number one on the women's tour during the 2013–14 season.^[10] She and Vasiljeva were runners-up in the World Women's Pairs Championship in 2016; she and Reanne Evans won the event in 2018, defeating Laura Evans and Suzie Opacic 3–0 in the final.^[12] Her form declined after 2018, which she attributed to her father's death in that year, commenting in 2022 that "it’s been a constant struggle since then" and saying she had been "finding it difficult to practice, just feeling I was getting nothing out of it."^[13] In May 2022, she became the first woman to compete in the final stages of the World Seniors Championship at the Crucible Theatre, having reached the eligible age of 40 in February of that year.^[14][15] She lost 0–3 to Wael Talaat but made a half-century break in the final frame.^[16]

Catalano had long expressed her belief that men held innate advantages over women in snooker. In 2014, after six-time world champion Steve Davis suggested that women lacked the "single-minded, obsessional type of brain" needed to succeed at the elite levels of the sport, Catalano agreed, saying, "I don't think women will ever compete with men at the top level".^[17] In August 2022, after transgender player Jamie Hunter won the inaugural US Women’s Open, Catalano called for transgender players to be banned from women's tournaments, saying "if this is allowed and becomes more common, there is no future for women’s snooker."^[18][19][20] Jason Ferguson, chairman of the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, responded that no such ban would be implemented, saying: "We have taken sufficient medical advice to be very satisfied that our policy is right for the current climate."^[21][18] Catalano ceased playing in 2022 in protest against the WPBSA's stance, stating that she was standing up for "unfairness" against cisgender women.^[22]

In April 2025, following the UK Supreme Court decision in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers, the WPBSA stated that it would review its policy on transgender players.^[23] Catalano said she would return to the sport if the rules were changed, saying: “I would love to go back. Snooker is in the blood.” She claimed that she had consistently been "shut down" by the WPBSA and its chairman Ferguson, said she felt "unheard," and alleged that other players were "frightened to say anything because they know they can get banned.” A WPBSA spokesperson stated: "The World Women's Snooker Tour is a welcoming environment. Maria Catalano remains welcome at World Women's Snooker Tour events, as has always been the case."^[22]

Her father, Antonio Catalano, was the brother of Ronnie O'Sullivan's mother, Maria O'Sullivan (née Catalano),^[3] making the two players first cousins.^[4][24] She was named Maria after Ronnie O'Sullivan's mother,^[25] while Ronnie O'Sullivan was given the middle name Antonio after her father.^[26] Following her father's death from cancer in 2018, she shaved her head on the eve of the 2018 UK Women's Championship to raise funds for the Macmillan Cancer Support charity.^[27] Outside snooker, she works in her family's ice-cream business.^[5]

World Women's Snooker