Wednesday, March 4, 2026
Column CM157
Women at the 2026 UK Open
The PDC UK Open has been held since 2003, and in fact two women competed in the very first edition of the tournament. Deta Hedman, who was playing in the PDC at the time, was one of them. The other – and this is less well known – was Crissy Manley, born Howatt.
Crissy Manley is the wife of Peter “One Dart” Manley and is aptly nicknamed “Two Dart.” Manley, born in 1959 and the same age as Hedman, won numerous WDF and BDO tournaments between 1995 and 2003, including the British International Classic four times. She reached the semi-finals of the BDO World Championship twice, losing both times to Trina Gulliver. At the Winmau World Masters, she reached the final in 2003 – and again lost to Trina Gulliver. 
She only played in the UK Open in 2003, losing 2-5 in the first round to Wayne Atwood. Manley still plays tournaments today, occasionally participating in Women’s Series events. She reached the quarterfinals there once in 2023, losing to Beau Greaves.
Deta Hedman has participated in the UK Open several times. She qualified for the inaugural tournament by winning the women’s event at the Las Vegas Desert Classic. Hedman lost her preliminary match against Paul Hogan in 2003. She returned in 2004 – and again lost her opening match. 
In her third attempt in 2005, she reached the last 64, losing to Wayne Atwood. Nevertheless, she made history at this tournament – she was the first woman to win a match in a PDC major and the first woman to defeat a man on television.
Little needs to be said about Hedman; she has won virtually every WDF and BDO women’s tournament at least once – except for the BDO World Championship. In 2025, she finally won the World Championship title – albeit with the WDF. Hedman participated in many Women’s Series events during the early years of the tour and has returned to the series this year.
Several years without female representation followed at the UK Open until Anastasia Dobromyslova qualified for the tournament via an amateur qualifier in 2008. At that time, the Russian was at the peak of her career, and there was much speculation about whether she might switch to the PDC. She played the PDC circuit for a while, but she didn’t achieve any major successes and returned to the BDO after two years. At the UK Open, she lost her first match against Robert Thornton.
She has tried her luck at Qualifying School several times – so far without success.
Later, as a Russian citizen, Dobromyslova was no longer allowed to compete in tournaments. Since 2022, she has played under a neutral flag, occasionally appearing on the Women’s Series, and actually qualified for the Women’s World Matchplay in 2024, where she lost her first match to Fallon Sherrock.
There were again years without any female players until 2020, when for the second time two women competed at the UK Open – Fallon Sherrock and Lisa Ashton. Sherrock, like Dobromyslova, qualified via an amateur qualifier, while Ashton, a Tour Card holder that year, qualified through the Order of Merit. 
Like Dobromyslova, Sherrock was also at the peak of her career at that time. In 2019, she became the first woman ever to defeat two men at the PDC World Championship – first Ted Evetts and then Mensur Suljović – but she lost in the first round of the UK Open to Kyle McKinstry.
Sherrock has also tried her luck at Qualifying School several times, but so far without success. However, she has been quite successful on the Women’s Series, where she has won several events and through which she has qualified for the Women’s World Matchplay every year. She won it in 2022.
Lisa Ashton, on the other hand, was the first woman to hold a Tour Card for two years but wasn’t successful enough overall to retain it. Ashton also plays on the Women’s Series and won the Women’s World Matchplay in 2025. Ashton has won the WDF/BDO World Championship four times – Sherrock has not yet.
Both women – and Dobromyslova before them – are somewhat caught between the PDC and the WDF, certainly not an easy situation. In 2021, Ashton participated in the UK Open once again as a Tour Card holder and reached the third round.
In 2026, Beau Greaves will compete in the UK Open for the second time. Like Dobromyslova and Sherrock before her, Greaves has amassed numerous titles with the WDF and is a three-time WDF World Champion. 
In 2025, she played on the Women’s Series, the Challenge Tour, and the Development Tour, securing a Tour Card as runner-up in the Development Tour Order of Merit. She also qualified for the UK Open last year via the Development Tour Order of Merit, reaching the third round, where she was beaten by Luke Humphries.
This year she qualified via the PDC Order of Merit and will face Darryl Pilgrim in the second round on the main stage.
Greaves recently threw a nine-dart finish on the Pro Tour and has performed very respectably overall on the Pro Tour so far – better than many of the male Tour Card newcomers. She certainly has a chance of becoming the first woman to advance beyond the third round of this tournament, provided the draw doesn’t present her with the toughest possible hurdles.
