Ewa Laurance

Ewa Laurance, “the Striking Viking,” is a Swedish pool player, World Trick Shot Champion, sports commentator for ESPN, and the author of three books on the sport of billiards. Ewa started playing pool at the age of 14 and two years later won the Swedish National Championship title. At 17, she won the 1981 European Pool Billiards Championships in Bern, after which she moved to New York. She won the US Open 9-ball title in 1988 and 1991. In 1992, she was the first and so far only female pool player to grace the cover of the New York Times Magazine. After her first marriage, she married sports presenter and actor Mitch Laurance in 1994, the year she also won the WPA Women’s 9-Ball World Championship in Chicago. In 2004, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Billiard Congress of America, which was followed in 2005 by a title at the Women’s Trick Shot Challenge in Las Vegas and in 2012 by the last of her major titles, 24 years after her first, the WPBA Masters. Ewa and Mitch live with their family in South Carolina.