Paul Hunter, who was aiming to complete a hat-trick of Masters titles, lost 3–6 to Mark Williams in the semi-final.

Hendry made the highest break of the championship with a 144 in his semi-final match against Ken Doherty, but missed out on a 147 during his quarter-final match against local favourite Jimmy White when he failed to pot the final pink.

This was the last Masters to be sponsored by Benson & Hedges after the ban on tobacco advertising which came into effect in summer 2003.

Mark Davis, Quinten Hann and Joe Perry were making their debuts in the Masters.

The breakdown of prize money for this year is shown below: [1][2][3] [1][2][3][6] The 2002 Masters Qualifying Event was held between 21 and 31 October 2002 at Pontin's in Prestatyn, Wales.