The chasing pack can smell blood as women’s snooker star Reanne Evans bids to end a nightmare season with a record eighth successive world title.

Cambridge Snooker Centre hosts the World Ladies Billiards & Snooker Association’s World Championships, which start on Friday, April 20.

Seven-time champion Evans saw her record 90-match winning streak ended by Maria Catalano in the Northern Championship back in September.

Although the 26-year-old from Dudley, West Midlands, returned to winning ways in the UK Championship, she missed the next two events after being struck down by pleurisy.

And Catalano, now ranked number one, inflicted another defeat on Evans, who has dropped to number three, in the preliminary round of the Connie Gough Memorial.

Winner of three ranking tournaments this season, Catalano, 29, also from Dudley, must see 2012 as her best chance of fulfilling her long-held dream of a first world title.

The WLBSA are delighted to welcome back Hong Kong quartet Jaique Ip Wan In, Yu Ching Ching, Ng On Yee and So Man Yan. And Chitra Magimairaj and Revanna Umadevi from India.

Tatjana Vasiljeva will again team up with world number 26 Joe Perry as the Latvia/Chatteris double act chases a hat-trick of Mixed Pairs titles. Former WLBSA chairman, and now president, Mandy Fisher is also in the line-up for the opening event on Friday.

The round-robin stage of the main competition kicks off at 10am on Saturday with the final scheduled for 2.30pm on Tuesday. Seniors play to a finish on Sunday and the Plate competition will be decided on Monday.

Southern Classic champion Emma Bonney, the world number two from Portsmouth, could be the first to claim both the snooker and billiards crowns since Kelly Fisher in 2003. Bonney will be seeking a fifth straight billiards title on Wednesday.

The WLBSA thanks Cambridge Snooker Centre for hosting the events.

DEFENDING CHAMPIONS

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP: Reanne Evans

MIXED PAIRS: Tatjana Vasiljeva & Joe Perry

WORLD SENIORS: June Banks

WORLD BILLIARDS: Emma Bonney