Eden Women’s Masters 2022: Tournament Preview
The final World Women’s Snooker Tour (WWS) event of 2022 is almost upon on us with the latest staging of the Eden Women’s Masters this weekend at Frames Sports Bar.
With a super size entry of 49 players from 15 countries, the event is set to welcome the largest ever recorded field for a WWS ranking event outside of the World Championship, surpassing the 48 who competed at the 1998 Connie Gough Memorial.
The event will once again take place at the fantastic Frames Sports Bar, which has become firmly established as the home of the Eden Masters since it first hosted the competition back in 2019. With 15 tables including four Xing Pai tables, the club is perfectly equipped for an event of this size.
The event continues to be generously supported by title sponsor Eden Resources, extending a relationship which dates back to 2013.
With each of the world’s top 12 ranked players in the draw, as well as the likes of multiple ranking event winner Tessa Davidson, 2019 World Cup winner Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan, former world under-21 champion Jasmine Bolsover and former Agnes Davies Memorial champion Jaique Ip Wan In, it is set to be another weekend of high-quality snooker in London.
Among the field are three debutants, including 11-year-old Ellise Scott, as well as Meriem Boustaoui and Nikola Broyak of Morocco and Poland respectively.
To the draw…
The Top Five
As at the recent Scottish Women’s Open, the world’s top five players have all been seeded through to Sunday’s last 16 stage to await Saturday’s 11 qualifiers.
In accordance with the tournament rules, defending champion Ng On Yee will be top seed following her second Eden victory last November, with reigning world champion Mink Nutcharut and world number one Reanne Evans seeded second and third respectively.
England’s Rebecca Kenna and Jamie Hunter complete the seeded players as per the latest world rankings.
Group A
England’s Zoe Killington leads Group A and will be aiming to maintain her impressive record of having reached the knockout rounds of all but one tournament since the resumption of play following the pandemic in September 2021. The 16-year-old reached the last 16 of a ranking event for the fourth time at the recent Scottish Open.
Awaiting her will be a group that includes the experienced Jenny Poulter, who like Killington has a strong record of qualifying from the round robin stage in recent seasons and is a three-time Eden Masters quarter-finalist.
Completing the group are two of the weekend’s three debutants, with 11-year-old Ellise Scott and Poland’s Nikola Broyak set for their first appearances on the WWS Tour.
Group B
Northern Ireland’s Chucky Preston returns to the Tour for the first time since July’s UK Women’s Championship and for the first time faces the challenge of having ranking points to defend, three years on from her debut quarter-final run at the same event.
Awaiting her in Coulsdon are Scottish duo Sophie Nix – fresh from a weekend that saw her win five matches on home soil in Glasgow – and Deborah Fladgate, who will compete at the event for a second time.
The group is also home to Annamaria Wilkins, who makes her third appearance at the Eden Masters.
Group C
Thailand’s Ploychompoo Laokiatphong is back in action at the Eden Women’s Masters and will be hoping to repeat her semi-final run at the same event in 2019, with the ranking points secured at that tournament set to be removed after this weekend.
She will face a challenging group that includes Chrissy Allwood and Aimee Benn – both former Eden Masters quarter-finalists – as well as Sarah Dunn, who reached the last 16 stage for the first time recently in Scotland.
Both Benn and Dunn also compiled their tour-best high breaks in Glasgow.
Group D
Back up inside of the world’s top 20 following her return to the tour in January 2022 following a 22-year break, England’s Tessa Davidson is the Group D seed at this weekend’s Eden Masters.
Joining her will be compatriot Clare Gamble, who will compete in only her third WWS tournament, as well as Lynn Shi of China and Louise Foster of Scotland.
Group E
Maria Catalano plays her second tournament of the season and will be hoping to add to a formidable record at the Eden Masters which has seen her reach one final (2013) and a further five semi-finals during the past decade.
She leads a group that also includes compatriot Jasmine Bolsover, who made her return to the Tour at the event last season following a four year break and is already up to 24th in the world rankings following four last 16 runs.
Another returning player is Jeongmin Park of South Korea, who competed in her first UK event in five years at the recent Scottish Open.
The group is completed by England’s Leah Humphrey, who reached the last 16 of the Winchester Open back in January.
Group F
Germany’s Diana Schuler is the top seed in Group F and heads to Coulsdon buoyed by her maiden title success at the recent Scottish Open, which saw her defeat Tessa Davidson to win the Seniors tournament.
Having reached the last 16 stage of the Eden Masters on no fewer than four previous occasions, Schuler will begin her 2022 campaign in a group that also contains Dalia Alska of Poland, who made her debut at this event a year ago at Frames.
English duo Louise Leskevicius and Laura Killington round off the group, both hoping to progress to the knockout rounds.
Group G
Mary Talbot-Deegan is the headline act in Group G and will be hoping to repeat a memorable weekend in 2021 which saw her claim her maiden Seniors title at the same venue last season.
She is joined by Kate Le Gallez of Guernsey, who last time out reached the last 16 stage of a tournament for the third time, winning four matches before coming unstuck against an in-form Jamie Hunter in Glasgow.
Elsewhere in the group are England’s Lesley Roberts and Sarah Milne of Scotland, the latter set to make her second appearance on Tour having reached the knockout rounds on debut last time out.
Group H
The highest-ranked player set to compete in the group stage, England’s Emma Parker is a former Eden Women’s Masters semi-finalist and will be targeting another strong run in Coulsdon this weekend.
She has been drawn in an international group which will see her face two-time ranking event finalist Man Yan So of Hong Kong, Zeinab Shahi of Iran (who previously competed at the 2019 World Championship in Thailand) and Tetyana Volovelska of Ukraine.
Group I
England’s Steph Daughtery is the highest ranked player in Group I and having not competed in the corresponding edition of the event in 2019, will be targeting a rankings rise with a strong performance in Coulsdon.
The initial opposition for the 21-year-old will include four-time ranking event quarter-finalist Ho Yee Ki of Hong Kong and England’s Marianne Williams, who are both set to compete in their second tournament of the season.
The group will be completed by Meriem Boustaoui of Morocco, who is set to make her Tour debut in London.
Group J
Siripaporn Nuanthakhamjan will be seeded for the first time at the Eden Masters, having risen to a career-high world ranking of number 19 following an impressive performance that saw her narrowly lose out to world champion Mink Nutcharut at the last 16 stage of last month’s Scottish Open.
Her reward will be an otherwise all-English group which will include Maureen Rowland, Cheryl Calverley and Emma Powers-Richardson, with the latter two hoping to reach the knockout rounds for the first time at a world ranking event.
Group K
The draw will be rounded off by Welsh number one Laura Evans, who returned to the world’s top 10 following her second quarter-final run of the season last month in Glasgow, where she narrowly lost out to Mink Nutcharut.
A former Eden Masters finalist back in 2015, Evans will notably take on former ranking event winner Jaique Ip Wan In during the group stages.
Also in the group are England’s Connie Stephens – who impressively made her highest WWS break to date of 32 at the Scottish Open – and Edinburgh’s Mhairi Mackay, who travels south following her Tour debut last month.
Under-21 / Seniors
Ploychompoo Laokiatphong remains on course for a clean sweep of Under-21 titles during the current season following her latest success in Glasgow against maiden finalist Sophie Nix.
In the Seniors competition there is set to be a strong field which includes current seniors number one Tessa Davidson and Scottish Open winner Diana Schuler, as well as defending champion Mary Talbot-Deegan and Maria Catalano, who is set to make her Seniors debut at the event.
The action gets underway this Saturday from 10:00am with the latest match results and standings available via WPBSA SnookerScores.
