The 2002 Masters (officially the 2002 Benson & Hedges Masters) was a professional invitational snooker tournament held at the Wembley Conference Centre, London from 3 to 10 February 2002. It was the 28th edition of The Masters, a Triple Crown event, and the penultimate invitational event in the 2001–02 snooker season. It followed the 2001 Scottish Masters and preceded the 2002 Irish Masters. Sponsored by the cigarette company Benson & Hedges, the event featured the top 16 from the snooker world rankings and two wild cards. The competition had a total prize fund of £650,000, with £175,000 going to the winner.

Paul Hunter was the tournament's defending champion and qualified for the final with victories over Stephen Lee, Peter Ebdon and Alan McManus in the preceding rounds as Mark Williams reached the same stage by defeating Mark King, Stephen Hendry and Jimmy White. Hunter defeated Williams 10–9 (ten frames to nine) to win the second of three Masters titles. Ronnie O'Sullivan compiled the tournament's highest break, a 138 total clearance, in the fourth frame of his first round match with Joe Swail.

The Masters is an invitational snooker tournament that was first held in 1975; the top-16 players from the snooker world rankings as well as a sponsors' selection entrant and the Benson and Hedges Championship victor invited to participate as wild cards for the 2002 competition. It is one of the three Triple Crown events in the game of snooker; the others being the World Snooker Championship and the UK Championship, but it is not a ranking tournament. As an invitational event, it carried no world ranking points. The 2002 Masters was its 28th staging, and the penultimate World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA) invitational event of the 2001–02 season, following the 2001 Scottish Masters and preceding the 2002 Irish Masters. It was held from 3 to 10 February 2002, at the Wembley Conference Centre, London, England.

Sponsored by the tobacco company Benson & Hedges, it had a total prize fund of £695,000, with £190,000 going to the winner, and the host broadcaster was the BBC. Every match was played as best-of-11 frames, except for the final which was the best-of-19 frames. World champion Ronnie O'Sullivan was installed as the favourite by bookmakers to win the tournament. Stephen Hendry, the six-times Masters champion, commented on his prospects of a seventh title: "There is no doubt that this is one of the most difficult tournaments to win. For the players it is second only to the Embassy [World Snooker Championship] in terms of prestige. But I feel I have certainly got as good a chance as anybody."

The breakdown of prize money for the 2002 Masters is shown below:

The Benson and Hedges Championship held at the Towers Snooker Club, Mansfield from 4 to 15 November 2001 determined a wild card qualifier for the Masters. Players ranked outside the top 16 in the world rankings were allowed to enter. Ryan Day qualified for the final with victories over Steven Bennie, Drew Henry, Paul Davies, Stuart Bingham, Ian McCulloch, Lee Walker and Sean Storey, where he played Hugh Abernethy, who defeated Ian Sargeant, Dominic Dale, Nick Dyson, Anthony Davies, Mark Gray and Shaun Murphy. Day became the competition's first Welsh winner since 1995 when he beat Abernethy 9–5 to enter the Masters and won £5,000 prize money for winning. Murphy compiled a maximum break in frame two of his 5–2 Last 32 win over Adrian Rosa, the second of his career, the second of the season, the fourth in tournament history and the 44th overall. At 19 years and 3 months, Murphy was the second youngest player to achieve a maximum break in professional snooker.

The first round, in which the two wild cards and those ranked 15th and 16th participated, took place from 3 to 4 February. Fergal O'Brien, the 2001 runner-up, overturned a 2–5 deficit to the sponsor's wild card selection Steve Davis and took the final four frames to win 6–5 with a match-high break of 97. Day, playing with a different cue stick after leaving his old one on a train returning from an event in Glasgow, beat world number 15 Dave Harold 6–3 in his Masters debut following a clearance from the brown ball to the pink ball in frame seven.

Both of the first round winners played and those ranked 1st to 14 played in the second round held from 3 to 6 February. Paul Hunter, the reigning Masters winner, came from 2–3 behind the 2001 LG Cup victor Stephen Lee to win 6–3 with breaks of 101, 69 and 69; Lee accumulated 32 points in the last four frames. John Higgins, the 1999 Masters champion, lost the first two frames to fellow Scot Alan McManus but won the next four to lead 4–2. McManus went 5–4 ahead with breaks of 50 and 102 before Higgins' 78 break in frame ten forced a final frame decider. McManus won the final frame on the brown for a 6–5 victory after Higgins went in-off the brown trying to escape from a snooker. Higgins did not attend the compulsory press conference because he was upset with his form. 1984 Masters winner Jimmy White led Matthew Stevens 5–0 before the latter stopped a whitewash with a 73 break in frame six. White won frame seven and the match 6–1 with breaks of 32 and 36 overturning Stevens' 53–0 lead in that frame. O'Brien played two-time Masters runner-up Ken Doherty, with O'Brien leading 4–0 before Doherty won three frames in a row to be 4–3 behind. O'Brien claimed frames eight and nine to win 6–5.