World ladies' snooker champion Reanne Evans is to become the first woman for 15 years to compete against the men on the professional tour.
Evans, 24, makes her debut against China's Liu Chang in the Players Tour Championship in Sheffield on Saturday.
The six-times world champion was handed a wild card to the professional tour after winning her last 61 matches.
Evans, the first woman on the circuit since Alison Fisher, said: "It's the biggest challenge of my career."
She added: "The standard will be really high. I'm going to try my best and just enjoy it - whatever happens it will be a steep learning curve for me.
"It's so hard to stay on the tour, but that's what I'm hoping for. I'm practising with a few different pro players to get as ready as I can.
"Being on the tour has given me the incentive to push myself as hard as I can."
Evans, from Dudley in the West Midlands, is not one to shirk a challenge, winning her 2006 world title while seven months pregnant with daughter Lauren, whose father is her former partner Mark Allen, the men's world number 10.
She also enjoyed a 4-3 win over John Higgins at last year's Six-Red World Championship in Ireland, sealing victory with a 50 break in the deciding frame.
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