World championship with eight Asian ladies

TOKYO - Fifteen names for the women's World Championship in Japan are known, on the list of participants only one place is left. Orie Hida, the reigning world champion leads the field with eight Asian ladies. They will battle with six Europeans and one American lady with Asian roots.

Therese Klompenhouwer is the main challenger to struggle with the reigning world champion. She is one of three Dutch women in the field. The other two European ladies are from Austria and Denmark.

Remarkably, Belgium, France, Spain and other European countries have not succeeded to send players to the World Championship. Danielle le Bruyn, the Belgian champion and number two in Europe, already had announced far in advance not to travel to Japan.

The tournament will be from 21 to 23 november and played in Kasumigaseki Plaza Hotel in Chiyoda-Ku in Tokyo.

The list of participants:

1 Orie Hida (Japan), 2 Therese Klompenhouwer (Ned), 3 Gülsen Degener (Turkey), 4 Karina Jetten (Ned), 5 Monique van Hamond (Ned), 6 Helga Mitterböck (Austria), 7 Marianne Mortensen (Denmark), 8 Natsumi Higashuchi (Japan), 9 Namiko Hayashi (Japan), 10 Bora Jung (Korea), 11 Ji Hyun Park (Korea), 12 Kyung Hui Oh (Korea), 13 Su Ah Park (Korea), 14 Esther Park (America ), 15 Yuko Nishimoto (Wildcard NBA, Japan).