Beau Greaves has revealed the difficult reaction she faced after publicly confirming her relationship with Shan Reeves on Instagram, describing the experience as "tough" and revealing that "there were quite a few vulgar comments from a lot of men." The couple met at a darts event a decade ago and have now been together for four years, living with each other. Greaves confirmed the relationship on Instagram, marking the first time she publicly revealed that she is gay.
"It's been tough for me," Greaves told The Observer. "I never really came out, as such. People who knew me, knew, but when we did post about it, there were quite a few vulgar comments from a lot of men." The reaction did not come as a surprise to those closest to her, however. "When I told my mum and dad, they just said, 'And?' At the end of the day, she's my biggest supporter. Why not embrace it for what it is, and not be bothered about what people say?"
Greaves has continued to impress since moving over to the PDC Tour, making history a countless number of times, becoming the first woman to win a Players Championship title while recently breaking new ground on the European Tour. But she admits the men's game is completely different from the women's circuit she dominates. "Since playing against the men, it has felt like a job. I've had to come to terms with the fact I need to win a game to win some money," she said. "You have to be really confident, back yourself. The second you start feeling, 'Oh, I'm not ready for this game,' or, 'I feel a bit nervous,' they just pounce on you and they don't care. You just have to fake it 'til you make it a little bit and just never give up. You have to just make yourself better. You just have to win."
She credited competing on the Development Tour with helping her development, saying playing "the cocky, arrogant young lads on the dev tour really helped my game." But she acknowledged the scrutiny that comes when results dip: "The second I have a bad average, it's, 'She's not good enough. She's never been good enough.' It's definitely hard to deal with but if I can do it, why can't other women do it?"
On the subject of Noa-Lynn van Leuven, who was banned from competing in any PDC Women's Series events amid a ban on transgender women being implemented earlier this year, Greaves said: "I have no bad feeling towards Noa at all. Playing when all that was going on was tough because you don't want to say anything too close to the bone and get called transphobic, which is not the case. We're just fighting for women's rights. I think the right decision was made, but I'd always respect her."
Greaves also suggested many female players are reluctant to make the step into the men's game. "If you asked the majority of the ladies now, 'Do you want to go and play against men on Sky Sports?', they would say no. Sometimes it feels a little bit like an exhibition. I've had to stop thinking like that and actually try and think, 'No, I am good enough.' [Other female players] don't believe in themselves maybe as much as they should do."
What makes Greaves' rise even more remarkable is that she overcame dartitis. The condition also struck Reeves, wrecking her career and forcing her to start playing with her left hand. For Greaves, it began when she was playing with Reeves on FaceTime. Expecting the synonymous thud, Reeves instead heard the words "I'm stuck." When she finally let it go, it went out a nearby window. In a tournament that soon followed, it took the Englishwoman eight minutes to throw three darts. "Why did she carry on playing? I'd just give up," Reeves remarked. Greaves did consider quitting, starting a Level One NVQ in painting and decorating and mulling over a career in window cleaning like her dad. Since then, she has learned to live with it. "The other players don't have any thoughts in their head," she stated. "You just have to ignore it and switch your brain off sometimes. And that's what I taught myself to do – just stop thinking about it."
Looking ahead, Greaves still needs that first win, following in the footsteps of Fallon Sherrock, but she wants to do it for herself. Asked about winning the PDC World Darts Championship, she said: "That would be pretty special, wouldn't it?" She added: "I don't really want to look at myself as a woman to go and win on Ally Pally. I just want to do it for my ranking and do really well. I want to do it just because I'm part of the professional circuit."
