Ewa Laurance

Ewa Laurance (formerly Ewa Svensson & Mataya, born February 26, 1964) is a Swedish professional pool player, most notably on the Women's Professional Billiard Association nine-ball tour, a sports writer, and more recently a sports commentator for ESPN. In 2004, she was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame. She has been nicknamed "the Leading Lady of Billiards" and "the Striking Viking". Playing career Laurance has been playing pool since she was 4 years old. She moved to the United States in 1981 at 17 years old, after competing in the 1980 WPBA World Straight Pool Championship in New York City. In 1983, she became the first female European player to win a professional pool event in the United States, winning the Clyde Childress 9-Ball Open. Laurance has won numerous major women's pool titles, including the WPA World Nine-ball Championship, WPBA U.S. Open 9-Ball Championship, WPBA National Championship, International Trick Shot Challenge and the European Pool Championship 14.1. In 2005, Laurance bested three of her peers, WPBA Tour members Allison Fisher, Dawn Hopkins, and Gerda Hofstatter, at the Women's Trick Shot Challenge held at the New York Hotel Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, pocketing US$25,000 as the grand prize. Animated and expressive, she played to the audience and the cameras, "a true showperson in her element and a wonderful example to all trick shot artists."