Ewa Mataya Laurance

Ewa Mataya Laurance or simply Ewa Laurance (born Ewa Svensson, February 26, 1964, Gävle, Sweden, and formerly known as Ewa Mataya) is a Swedish professional pool player, most notably on the Women's Professional Billiard Association nine-ball tour, and more recently a sports commentator for ESPN.

Laurance, nicknamed "the Striking Viking", has been playing pool since she was 14 years old. She moved to the United States in 1981 after competing at the New York City World Championships.



She has authored three books, The Ewa Mataya Pool Guide, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Pool & Billiards, and Quick Start Guide to Pocket Billiards. She has also written monthly columns for Pool & Billiard magazine. In 2004, she was inducted into the Billiard Congress of America's Hall of Fame.

Allison Fisher

Allison Fisher (born 24 February 1968) is an English professional pool (and former professional snooker) player. She won her first world title at the age of 17. To date, she has won over 80 national titles and 11 world titles in total. She even entered the men's snooker rankings, but never progressed into the sport's upper levels. Feeling that she did not receive the same respect as the male players, she moved to the United States to play on the pool circuit. On 18 March 2009, she endorsed the Delta-13 billiard rack and has her own signature series.



For 2007, she was declared the female Player of the Year by all three of the major pool publications, Billiards Digest,Pool & Billiard Magazine, and InsidePOOL Magazine (in each case with Shane Van Boening as her male co-recipient of the honor), and also ranked #1 in the P&B "Fans' Top 20 Favorite Players" poll for that year. She has been the BD female Player of the Year for 11 of the 12 years spanning 1996–2007, including 6 in a row, 2002–2007.
On 8 June 2009, Fisher was nominated to be inducted into the Billiard Congress of America Hall of Fame.

Sharni Vinson

Sharni Vinson (born July 22, 1983) is an Australian model, actress and dancer best known for the soap opera Home and Away and the film Step Up 3D.

Vinson portrayed the role of Cassie Turner in the Australian soap opera Home and Away from 2004 to 2008. She joined the show permanently in December 2004, having previously appeared twice on the show as a minor character and auditioning for the role of Martha McKenzie but losing out to Jodi Gordon. In 2006 Vinson was nominated for a TV Week Logie Award for Best New Talent for her performance in Home and Away. In April, 2008 Sharni announced she would be leaving the series to pursue a career in America.

She portrayed the role of Lori Mandel, a pregnant woman held hostage in a bank in CSI:NY. Vinson also had a guest role in episode 13 of NCIS, "Broken Bird", which first aired on 13 January 2009. She played the part of an airline hostess named Jeanette. Vinson also played a minor role in Cold Case episode "Metamorphosis" as Mia Romanov who worked at the circus.

She has also appeared in other Australian television shows such as Saturday Disney, The Footy Show, and the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children Telethon. She was also featured on the Australian televisions series Creature Features with her pet dog.

For her first film, Vinson was cast as the female lead in the third installment in the Step Up film series, titled Step Up 3D. Filming took place in late 2009 and the film was released on August 6, 2010. She was then cast as one of the leads of Forehead Crush 2, which was filmed in mid-2010 and is set to star in the action thriller No Man's Land from director Jason Cox.