Michaela Tabb

Michaela Tabb (born 11 December 1967) is a Scottish snooker and pool referee. She established significant milestones for female officials in professional cue sports, beginning in pool, where she officiated at top tournaments such as the WPA World Nine-ball Championship and the Mosconi Cup. She qualified in 2001 to referee on the World Snooker Tour and was the sport's highest profile female referee for the next 14 years. She became the first woman to officiate at a professional ranking snooker tournament at the 2002 Welsh Open, and the first woman to referee a ranking tournament final at the 2007 Welsh Open. She was the first woman to referee the World Snooker Championship final, which she did twice, in 2009 and 2012. She remained the only woman to referee the World final until Desislava Bozhilova did so in the 2025 event.

Tabb left the professional snooker tour in March 2015 following a dispute with the sport's commercial arm, World Snooker Ltd, against which she brought a case alleging sex discrimination, unfair dismissal, and breach of contract. The parties reached an out-of-court settlement in September 2015, under which World Snooker Ltd paid Tabb an undisclosed financial sum. She continued to referee at pool events and on the World Seniors Tour. In May 2025, following the 2025 World Seniors Championship, she retired from refereeing standard snooker events.

Tabb is also a former pool player. In the 1990s and early 2000s, she competed on the women's eight-ball pool circuit, where she won a number of titles as a solo competitor and as a member, and later captain, of the Scottish Ladies' Pool Team.

Personal life Born on 11 December 1967, in Bath, England, They have two sons, Morgan and Preston, both of whom play competitive pool; Morgan McInnes has played on Scotland's under-23 A team at the European Pool Championships. In July 2018, Tabb and her family established Blackball Tables, distributing pool tables and accessories. After running the business from their home for five years, they opened a store, On Cue World, in Rosyth in 2024.

Playing career Tabb started playing competitive blackball in 1991, at the age of 23. Selected the following year to play on the Scottish Ladies' Pool Team,

On 19 March 2015, World Snooker Ltd announced that Tabb had left the professional refereeing circuit.

The professional snooker tour now features a significant number of female referees, including Desislava Bozhilova, Maike Kesseler, and Tatiana Woollaston. Tabb has commented on her groundbreaking role in opening the sport up to female referees, saying: "I know that my legacy is that all these young ladies that I can see on the television are doing that job because I did it”.