The 2005 Amway Cup World Women Billiards Invitational has now begun in Taipei, Taiwan. The dozen women selected for this year's event are Jeanette Lee (USA), Yuan-Chun Lin (TPE), Shu-Han Chang (TPE), Jasmin Ouschan (AUS), Jennifer Chen (TPE), Wendy Jans (DEN), Ga-Young Kim (KOR), Jennifer Barretta (USA), Shin-Mei Lu (TPE), Allison Fisher (GB), Akimi Kajitani (JPN), and Karen Corr (IRE).
The day prior to the event was spent in television studios doing out-take shots for the upcoming broadcast and a press conference packed with live television cameras from throughout Asia.
The tournament is a round-robin format where the dozen combatants are broken into two camps of six players each. These two groups will do battle for two and a half days to determine the top two finishers in each group. These four players will then graduate to the final stages.
Day one got off to an early 9:30 AM start and the first three matches of the day all went to hill-hill heartbreakers. Jeanette Lee was the first winner, defeating Yuan-Chun Lin 7-6, followed by Shu-Han Chang's defeat of Jasmin Ouchin by the same 7-6 scoreline. The third close one was Jennifer Chen's narrow escape of Wendy Jans (7-6).
The next three matches had only slightly wider margins. Ga-Young Kim led Jennifer Barretta 4-0 at one point before Barretta clawed back to 4-3. Then Kim pulled away and finally won by the score of 7-4. Jasmin Ouchin met her second loss of the day at the hands of defending champion Shin-Mei Liu 7-4 and Allison Fisher took the wind from Kajitani Akimi's sails 7-5.
The first walkover of the day came next as Karen Corr mastered the table over Jennifer Barretta 7-2. After a brief delay due to a scoring confusion in their match, Jeanette Lee and Wendy Jans continued with Wendy prevailing 7-2. The final two matches of the day found Jennifer Chen defeating Akimi Kajitani 7-3 and Shin-Mei Liu prevailing over Shu-Han Chang.
At the end of day one the group scores are as follows:
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