Twenty of the world’s top women’s match race skippers have been invited to compete in the 2010 ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship in Newport Rhode Island from 20 - 25 September 2010. The 2010 championship is organised by the New York Yacht Club and the regatta will be sailed on Narragansett Bay near Newport. NYYC’s fleet of 13 Sonars will be used for the competition.

The ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship was first held in 1999 in Genoa, Italy. Women’s match racing has been awarded Olympic status and will be featured for the first time at the 2012 Olympic Games in Weymouth.

20 top women’s teams of four sailors each, from around the world, have been invited to participate in the 2010 Championship. Invited skippers include the defending champion, Nicky Souter from Australia, as well as top sailors from the ISAF Women’s Match Racing rankings and the ISAF Sailing World Cup plus two wild card entries.

The invites for the 2010 Women’s Match Racing World Championship include:

1 Nicky Souter (AUS) - defending champion
2 Lucy Macgregor (GBR)
3 Renee Groeneveld (NED)
4 Anna Tunnicliffe (USA)
5 Claire Leroy (FRA)
6 Katie Spithill (AUS)
7 Anne-Claire Le Berre (FRA)
8 Julie Bossard (FRA)
10 Sally Barkow (USA)
11 Lotte Meldgaard Pedersen (DEN)
12 Camilla Ulrikkeholm (DEN)
13 Samantha Osborne (NZL)
14 Juliana Senfft (BRA)
15 Silja Lehtinen (FIN)
16 Ekaterina Skudina (RUS)
17 Silvia Roca Mata (ESP)
18 Rita Gonçalves (POR)
19 Sofia Bekatorou (GRE)
20 Petra Kliba (CRO)

All the latest details on the 2010 Worlds, together with an archive of results from previous championships is available on the ISAF Women’s Match Racing World Championship microsite at www.sailing.org/wmatchworlds