Sunny Akani Cues: The Bangkok Pro Who Makes Cues for Players Like Ronnie O'Sullivan

Most cue makers who supply top players learned the trade at a lathe. Sunny Akani learned it at the table. Akani Songsermsawad started playing snooker at eight, turned professional in 2015, and still competes on the tour while running a cue-making business from Bangkok. That combination is the heart of his pitch: he builds cues the way a player thinks about them, and he has been noticed at the very top of the game. One British tabloid, in coverage quoted on his own site, credited a "genius" cue maker from Bangkok with helping Ronnie O'Sullivan rediscover his form, and the photos on his site show him with O'Sullivan and his Sunny Akani cue.

For the full story of that connection, see our piece on Ronnie O'Sullivan's custom cue. This profile looks at the maker himself.

From player to cue maker

Akani's own account is simple. As a child he assumed all cues were the same, and that a straight one was good enough. As his level rose and he turned professional, he started noticing how much a cue's balance, shaft and feel affected his game. That led him first to modifying cues and then to making them.

It's a story you'll recognise if you've read our other maker profiles, but with one difference. Where Stamford Cuemakers and most UK workshops grew out of the trade, Akani's credibility comes from the practice table. Photos on his site show him playing at the English Open in 2025 and finishing cues in the workshop with his sister. A customer from Kuala Lumpur notes that he is still competing in qualifiers despite the workload.

The range: six models, graded by wood

Akani sells cues in a clear ladder, and he is unusually open about what separates each step. Every model uses an ebony butt, exotic wood splices and a choice of plain, front-splice, four-splice or eight-splice designs on the higher models. What changes is the grade of the materials.

• Begin is the entry model. Notably, these are downgraded Origin or Elite cues, ones with slightly lighter density or a small defect that misses his standards for the higher lines. Shafts are B grade, so strength varies and the arrows may not all be straight.

• Origin is the budget-range standard model, with an A- grade shaft that is knot- and blemish-free, stiff, with straight arrows. The wood isn't chosen for looks.

• Elite steps up to A-grade ebony and exotic wood, straight side grain and a visually matched, more attractive finish.

• Low Deflection is where he positions the cues for serious players: A+ grade exotic wood and shafts, his own titanium ferrule, and a certificate of authenticity.

• Low Deflection Limited uses the rarest exotic woods and A++ shafts with evenly spaced arrows, made in very limited numbers each year.

• Professional is the top of the range, built for tour players using the rarest woods and pro-grade shafts, with production capped at just 50 cues a year.

The Begin, Origin and Elite models come with a brass ferrule, upgradable to titanium for an extra £50. On the Low Deflection models and above, the titanium ferrule is standard and is Akani's own design. He also sells titanium ferrules, cue tips, cue oil and aluminium cases separately, plus pool cues.

What players say

His site carries a long run of customer messages, and a few themes repeat: the finish, the solid feel of the shaft, and how straight the cues roll. One customer, a multi-medal player on the Asian and Gulf circuits, describes retiring a John Parris cue after 32 years to switch to Akani. Treat these as testimonials chosen by the maker, but the range of countries they come from, from Malaysia and Hong Kong to the UK and Egypt, shows how far the cues have travelled. His site lists sales in more than 25 countries.

How to buy Sunny Akai cues (and why it matters)

This is the part to read carefully. Akani sells through a network of authorised dealers and distributors rather than shipping direct in most of the world, and he warns that fake Sunny Akani cues exist. Authenticity can't be guaranteed outside the official network.

• UK: Green Baize in the north-east of England is an official distributor, offering both in-stock cues and custom pre-orders.

• Scotland: On Cue World is an official distributor.

• Elsewhere: he lists official dealers and distributors in Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China, the UAE and Gulf, Egypt and Africa, Germany and Canada.

• No dealer in your region? You can order direct through his official Facebook page, though direct orders aren't available in areas already covered by a dealer.

He also notes he can be slow to reply, since most of his time goes into making cues, so a dealer is usually the faster route.

Why he belongs on this list

Sunny Akani meets the test we set for this directory: a named maker, personally making the cues, independently owned, and focused on snooker. He also shows something the UK-centric cue conversation tends to miss, that some of the most in-demand hand-made cues are now coming out of Thailand, and that a working professional can be a serious cue maker at the same time.

If you're comparing options, see how he sits alongside the other makers in our independent snooker cue makers directory, or read Beyond the Big Names for three UK and Canadian workshops.