Barbara Taylor joined an exclusive club of multiple-time world champions as she defeated Sarah Coxon 8-5 in the final to win the 2022 WEPF World Ladies 8-Ball Pool Championship.

Taylor has enjoyed the best week of her illustrious playing career in Killarney, completing a unique WEPF treble of captaining England to the World Ladies Team Championship, fulfilling a career grand slam when securing the World Masters for the first time, and regaining the World Championship.

In fact, Taylor now holds four major individual honours all at the same time if you include the European Ladies Championship – which she won at the same Gleneagle Hotel venue - and the English National Ladies Singles which she has also both claimed within the past 12 months.

Rainham cueist Taylor defeated four players representing four different nations to get to her fourth world championship final. After a 6-1 win over Jodie Allen (Scotland), she denied England teammate Sandy King 6-4 in the last 16.

Wales’ Leanne Pearce was eliminated 7-4 in the quarter-finals, before Taylor comfortably dispatched four-time winner Emma Cunningham 7-1 in a stellar semi-final showdown.

Making her way through to a maiden world final on the other side of the draw was Coxon, who was following in the footsteps of 2014 winner Kirsty Davies as only the second Welsh competitor to reach the final.

Taylor’s experience was perhaps a factor during the early stages of the final, as she raced into a 5-0 lead as her opponent struggled to settle.

However, Coxon was resilient and showed her class by taking the final two frames before the mid-session interval. On resumption, Coxon got herself right back into the match, claiming the next two frames to set up possibly the greatest final comeback in the event’s history.

The match would swing again, though, as Taylor registered a steely break clearance in frame 10 to stop Coxon’s sequence before winning two of the next three for glory.

Taylor becomes the sixth multiple-time winner of the Championship and the fourth player to win both the WEPF World Ladies Masters and WEPF World Ladies Championship within the same year.