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.
Champagne corks often pop and loud, boisterous cheers are usually heard around Constitution Dock when the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race line honors winner finishes in the Tasmanian state capital. There were no such celebrations this year when the defending champions on board LawConnect won the race in the early hours of yesterday morning, as it came about 24 hours after two sailors died on separate boats in sail boom accidents two hours apart on a storm-ravaged first night of the race. LawConnect, a 100-foot super maxi skippered by Australian tech millionaire Christian Beck, sailed up the River Derwent at just after 2:30am.
‘BOWLINE’ AND ‘ARCTOS’: Roy Quaden was hit on the head by a boom, while Nick Smith was struck by the main sheet and thrown across the boat amid rough seas Two sailors have been killed in separate incidents in the treacherous Sydney Hobart Yacht Race, officials said yesterday, as a string of yachts retired in powerful winds and high seas. One of the crew members, 55-year-old Roy Quaden on Flying Fish Arctos, was hit on the head by a boom as the fleet raced down the New South Wales coast, race organizers said. The other man, 65-year-old Nick Smith, was struck by the main sheet aboard Bowline and thrown across the boat, said David Jacobs, vice commodore of the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia. “Unfortunately, he hit his head on the winch, and
Liverpool on Thursday powered seven points clear at the top of the Premier League as the title favorites survived a scare in their 3-1 win against Leicester City, while Bruno Fernandes was sent off in Manchester United’s dismal 2-0 defeat against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Erling Haaland missed a penalty as crisis-torn Manchester City failed to end their dismal run with a 1-1 draw against Everton, but it was United’s travails and Liverpool’s remarkable run that took center-stage. Arne Slot’s side were shocked by Jordan Ayew’s early strike at Anfield, but the leaders recovered their composure to equalize just before the interval through Cody
HAT-TRICK PREP: World No. 1 Sabalenka clinched her first win of the season, as she aims to become the first woman in 20 years to win three Australian Opens in succession Coco Gauff, Jasmine Paolini and Taylor Fritz yesterday all clocked impressive wins as tennis powerhouses Italy and the US surged into the quarter-finals of the mixed-team United Cup. World No. 3 Gauff swept past Croatia’s Donna Vekic 6-4, 6-2 to avenge a loss at the Paris Olympics, while Fritz took care of Borna Coric 6-3, 6-2 in searing Perth heat. That was enough to put the Americans — last year’s winners — into a last-eight clash with China today, while Elena Rybakina’s Kazakhstan today are to meet defending champions Germany, led by Alexander Zverev, in the other Perth quarter-final. In Sydney, the in-form
RSS