Taiwan’s top female pool stars are seeking to keep the trophy at home when the Amway eSpring International Women’s Nine-Ball Championships begin today in Taipei.
Formerly known as the Amway Cup, organizers and sponsors of the tournament have set up an exhibition and invited special guests to celebrate the event’s 20-year anniversary.
It is among the top events in the women’s circuit and is sanctioned by the World Pool-Billiard Assocation (WPA),
the international governing body of pocket-billiard sports, as well as the Asian Pocket Billiard Union.
Most of the world’s top-ranked female players, along with several former tournament winners, are to play at the event, organizers said at a news conference.
The competitors are divided into eight groups for the round-robin stage and the games follow WPA nine-ball rules and the “three-ball break” rule.
The finals are to be played on Sunday.
The event is cohosted by the Taipei Department of Sports and the Chinese Taipei Billiards Association, with all games to be played at the Taipei Gymnasium next to the Taipei Arena.
British star Allison Fisher, a former World No. 1, won the inaugural Amway Cup in 1998 and is the most successful player at this year’s event, winning the title five times.
“It brought back many wonderful memories to see this special retrospective exhibition, for those early years when I won the championship a few times, and helped to build upon that success,” Fisher said, “I was just starting my career at the time, and it was a great experience coming to Taiwan to play in front of a new audience.”
“I love playing in this tournament. I like the format and the way it is organized, and also can meet people from many different cultures,” she said.
“We have made good friends with other players, even though we are competitors at the games,” she said.
Taiwan is represented by Chou Chieh-yu, who won the title in 2009 and 2012; Lin Yuan-chun, who won the title in 2008 and 2015; and 2004 winner Liu Shin-mei.
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