‘The Michael Jordan of women’s pool’ travels from UK to Quincy to compete in billiards tournament

QUINCY — Billiards has taken Kelly Fisher all over the world.

This week, it has brought her here.

Fisher, the No. 1-ranked player by the Women’s Professional Billiards Association, is playing in the America’s Heyball Championships at the Oakley-Lindsay Center, the first tournament of its kind in Quincy.

Fisher’s resume is impressive and dynamic — six Women’s World Snooker Championships, two World Women’s Billiards Championships, two Women’s World Nine-Ball Championships, the 2008 U.S. Open Pool Championship, and the 2011 WPA Women’s World Ten-Ball Championship.

She also took home the gold medal for Great Britain at the 2022 World Games Nine-Ball Singles in Birmingham, Ala., and currently trains the Hong Kong National Team in pool.

“She’s the Michael Jordan of women’s pool,” Fisher’s manager Steve Rau said.

Fisher began her billiards journey by playing snooker at her parents’ pub in the United Kingdom as a 7-year-old.

“I used to sneak on it as a child, turn a beer crate upside down (to stand on),” Fisher said. “My parents got in trouble for that.”

Then her parents bought another pub that had an English pool table in it.

“I used to play on that for a pound (dollar) a game and play the guys,” Fisher said. “I remember saving up like 500 pounds. I used to collect the coins. I counted them and it was like 500. I seemingly could play a little bit.”

This hustling was fun and all, but a chance encounter at a snooker club when Fisher was 12 years old gave her billiards career a jolt.

“I was playing away, not a clue, just enjoying playing,” Fisher said. “My dad saw a poster for a local coach, and he inquired about the coach, and sure enough by coincidence or by God’s will or whatever you want to say, (Lionel Payne, the coach) was sitting at the bar having a sandwich. My dad started chatting with him, and I’m none the wiser. He says, ‘I’ll take a look and see what I think.’ As soon as he saw me, he said, ‘She’s a bit too short. Maybe bring her back in a year.’ 

“Then I must have started hitting balls and he’s like, ‘No, no, I’ve changed my mind. Let’s begin now.’ He saw the talent and that’s where it all began.”

Payne is still Fisher’s coach 33 years later.

“I was just messaging him,” Fisher said. “He’s watching me play, staying up ’til midnight and picking fault at whatever I need to work on, telling me what I’m doing well.”

Fisher won the Women’s World Snooker Championships in all but one year between 1997 and 2003.

“It wasn’t very lucrative, but I just wanted to be a champion, and I accomplished that,” Fisher said. “Then I realized I needed more money.” 

Fisher moved to the United States in February 2004 and shifted her focus to nine-ball pool. She lived in New Jersey for six months and in North Carolina for nine years before moving back to the UK.

“There was a big to-do in the UK,” Fisher said. “Most of our events were sponsored by a tobacco company, and the government stopped that, so we lost all our sponsorship, all our funding, and there were no more events for quite a period of time.

“I’d never done anything else in my life, so I moved to America, and I transitioned to nine-ball, and here we are.”

As if winning championships in three different billiards disciplines wasn’t enough, Fisher took up Heyball — a game popular in China — at the age of 35.

“If you took snooker and American pool, the hybrid is this game,” Fisher said of Heyball.

Heyball features a table the same size as is used for pool — 9 feet long by 4.5 feet wide — but with smaller, rounder pockets similar to snooker. It also uses pool balls instead of smaller snooker balls, and the rails have less spring to them.

Fisher only plays Heyball a few times a year, and being relatively new to the sport, she admitted she hasn’t quite mastered it.

“My knowledge isn’t there because I don’t play it enough,” Fisher said. “Sometimes I get in situations where I don’t know what to do, whereas they understand the tactical side of the game. The pocketing I’m okay at, but the tactical side of the game is questionable sometimes. I play the wrong shot, play the wrong pattern. If I played it more often, I’d be fine.”

Her latest challenge came in Wednesday’s quarterfinal match against 14-year-old Savannah Easton, a rising billiards star from Las Vegas. Fisher defeated Easton 6-2 to advance to Thursday’s semifinals.

“She can really play. She’s a great, great player,” Fisher said of Easton. “She feels like the pressure is on her because she just wants to win. I remember that. She’s very much how I was. She reminds me a lot of myself when I was her age. She’s going to be a champion for sure. I can see it.”

Because of that potential and Fisher’s ever-burning desire to win, Fisher told Easton during their post-match chat that any pointers will have to hold off for a while.

“She didn’t want to give me any advice because she said, ‘I’m probably going to play you many more times,’” Easton said. “She’s trying to wait until she retires.”

Fisher wants to stay on top for as long as she can before she passes the torch, but she knows that day could come very soon.

“I’m just going to try and keep her down while I can because eventually I won’t be able to,” Fisher said. “She’s going to overtake me. She doesn’t want me to retire before she takes over me. She says ‘don’t retire on me before I’ve done it,’ and I say ‘I’m sure you’ll be doing it very soon before I retire. Don’t worry.’”

Until then, Fisher will continue to dedicate her life to the sport that has given her a career that she could have only dreamed of as a child.

“I’m very fortunate to have traveled the world and to have a job doing what I love,” Fisher said. “The day I don’t feel like I have a chance to win will be the day I hang my cue up. There’s nothing else that can give me that feeling, the adrenaline. That’s all I know. If you told me I had to stop right now, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”