The mother of all snooker champions

That remarkable victory 18 months ago earned her £800. Should O'Sullivan win his third world championship next May, he will pocket comfortably more than £200,000.

While stars such as O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and world champion John Higgins can command high six- f i g u r e sums from a clutch of sponsors, struggling Evans has now lost her only backers.

The plumbers who backed her last season with £4,000 have pulled the plug, leaving her to rely even more on the support of her bricklayer dad Kevin and his much-travelled M-reg Mercedes.

Evans is constantly lifted by her family, her 16-month-old daughter Lauren, and her partner Mark Allen, the 2004 worldamateur champion from Belfast who has climbed to 29th in the men's world rankings.

But, as life gets tougher and budgets grow ever tighter, the best women's snooker player on the planet after winning three successive titles, finds herself looking enviously towards the United States and the rewards she knows lie there.

"I hate pool," she laughs, while admitting that Allison Fisher, Karen Corr and, more recently, Kelly Fisher have crossed the great divide to enjoy the lucrative North American circuit and a better quality of life.

Barry Hearn famously predicted that Allison Fisher, now 39, would become snooker's first millionairess when the sport went open in 1990. Now, billed as pool's Duchess of Doom, she almost certainly is.

Fisher, with 47 pool titles, is box office, and can clear around £15,000 for winning a so-so pool event. Evans cleaned up five of last season's six main women's titles and calculates her winnings at £1,200.

Evans, from Dudley, said: "Things started to go downhill when tobacco sponsorship was banned in 2003. The men gave a small percentage of Embassy money to the ladies. Not a lot, but even that stopped.

"I think I got £500 for winning the world title this time. The first season I entered at 16, I got £1,500 just for reaching the semis. I couldn't even earn that now if I won all the tournaments in a season.

"I'm lucky we've got a snooker table at home. We're a snooker family — my mum, Pat, taught dad Kevin — and one of my older brothers, Ryan, almost made it on to the pro circuit a few years ago.

"My mum looks after Lauren if I practise at a social club down the road, and the club give me £2 towards the table — I pay the other pound — but I need to be playing against men to sharpen my game.

"I'm lucky with Mark, he helps keep my spirits up. Sometimes it's so hard to be motivated, you feel like you're banging your head against the wall. We do practise together, and, yes, I have beaten him."

Now Evans is playing pro-ticket events — entry fee £60, top prize £200 — and hopes to launch an all-out effort next season to reach the pro circuit.

It will be hard going. Harder than winning a world title six weeks before you give birth?

"Well, the bump was quite large but the doctors said if I felt all right there was no reason why I couldn't play. A few shots were awkward. I could only just reach to break off! By the end my legs swelled up and I was completely shattered.

"But I didn't feel any pressure because I wasn't really expecting to do so well."

Fisher, the previous world champion, may yet be followed to America by Maria Catalano, O'Sullivan's cousin, who is testing the pool water.

It would be a tough decision for Evans to make, however. She said: "I love snooker, I want to keep playing. I have to believe things will pick up.

"Going to America would seem like giving up. It would be my very last resort. I'd need to feel there was nothing left here."