WNT Hanoi Open 2025, Vietnam, Oct 7-12
- By sjm
- Main Forum
- 389 Replies
Wow, what a misinformed post. You can't name anything Emily has done well? I nearly fell out of my chair when I read that!She has done nothing but make bad decisions, and lots of them. Matchroom only continues to run because they have a lot of money to throw at it, and because the team around her is able to keep it mostly going in spite of Emily and all her horrible decision making, and make no mistake about it, it absolutely is in spite of her and not because of her.
This is just another in a long list that could be made about all the ways she has shown gross incompetence and made horrible decisions. Marcel is legendary for his own incompetence, not little mistakes, but legitimate total incompetence. Obviously Emily hears about it every time he makes another massive mistake because it gets widely discussed everywhere and the whole pool world hears about it. Even if he is not a direct report employee to Emily, when your head referee is so incompetent that the whole pool world talks about it, over and over, for years, it is an Emily problem. When you head referee is so bad that it literally affects the fairness and outcomes of your events, often, it is an Emily problem. Period. And years later she still hasn't solved the problem. That couldn't happen for that long if anybody with any competence were in charge.
One would be hard pressed to name anything of any significance that Emily does or has done well (that is due to her, not her team), but her incompetent blunders continue to pile up one after another as time goes by.
Oh, and have you ever heard about the purple five ball?
Emily, through constant travel and sustained workaholism, has reached out to venue sponsors all over the world to produce great events and has, consequently, created the best professional pool tour since the 1990's. This is just the fourth year of the WNT, but Emily has already produced at least one major in each of England, Poland, Bosnia, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Philippines, United States, and Spain.
She has also reached out all over the world to establish new Matchroom affiliated ranking events. In 2023, Emily added ranking events in Scotland, Poland, Spain, and Vietnam. In 2024, WNT ranking events were added in Colombia, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Maldives, Finland, Morocco, and Portugal. In 2025, WNT ranking points could also be earned in Bosnia, Romania, and the Philippines. Wow!
Emily has greatly raised the bar for pool productions, too. As a 50-year fan of pro pool, I can tell you that I've never seen better event productions than those of Matchroom. For starters, Matchroom productions almost never run behind schedule. They have the best tournament rooms and the best arenas that I have ever experienced. Their studio hosts and interview teams are the best I've ever seen. Emily has also assembled the best commentary team in our sport's history. She has grown the Mosconi Cup into an extravaganza that I doubt even Barry Hearn could have ever imagined, and the last one in Orlando was, in my opinion, the best ever Mosconi Cup.
Why you would believe that her team made all of this happen in spite of her is beyond me. Emily herself has done most of the legwork to internationalize pool in a way that already exceeds anything I could have ever imagined. It has been her negotiating skills and charisma that have resulted in the worldwide business relationships that make the WNT possible. The WNT brand is very strong in our sport and she is the reason.
It is no secret that I am among Emily's greatest advocates, but I will not pretend that I agree with everything Emily has done (purple five and poor officiating unaddressed are good examples of where I am not satisfied), but she usually gets things right and the result is a highly entertaining, sustainable worldwide pool tour that is wowing people in America, Europe and Asia.
If you do not enjoy WNT events, it is your every right not to watch, but most pool fans view the WNT as a godsend that came in the wake of some of the leanest years pro pool had ever seen.
Emily is a dedicated and shrewd business-woman and she has already done a lot to bring our sport to a previously unsurpassed level. It is hard to believe that you cannot see that.
