Another tournament and another statistical preview is upon us. However, the UK Championships is not just another snooker tournament instead forming part of snookers prestigious Triple Crown. That means there are plenty of statistics that range back through the all-time archives but i'm going to try and select statistics that have most relevance, with a mixture of all-time statistics for players in the tournament and key statistics based from the 2011 tournament to now with 2011 being when the tournament returned to York and when the format was reduced to the best-of-11 frames.
Ding Junhui tops the all-time statistics of the players competing in York this week in terms of their UK Championship win percentages. Ding's percentage is 75.61% which leads Mark Williams who has a win percentage of 73.75% narrowly edging out John Higgins 73.68%. Stephen Maguire is next in with a percentage of 72.73% while in fifth place is Shaun Murphy with a percentage of 69.77%.
When it comes to deciding frame statistics, Mark King has surprisingly played the most out of anyone in the field with 14, winning 10 of those so don't be shocked to see any of his matches run the distance this week. The same applies to Shaun Murphy, Mark Williams and Stuart Bingham who have all been a part of 13 UK Championship deciders. Murphy winning the most of those with 8, despite losing in the Last 16 of both the 2013 and 2014 editions 6-5 to Barry Hawkins and Marco Fu respectively. Stuart Bingham has won only 6 of his 13 deciders in the UK Championship, which is less than 50%. Interestingly, in terms of Bingham's season so far he has played in 7 deciders, and only won 2 of those.
Despite only playing in three events in the 2015-2016 season so far (excluding the World 6 Reds Championship) Ding Junhui has already played in 6 deciding frames winning in 4 of those.
Tom Ford is someone you would not want to take on in a decider based on his statistics this season, winning in all of the 5 deciding frames that he has competed in. Scott Donaldson is Ford's opponent in round one.
One thing Ian Burns has in his favour prior to playing Tian Pengfei in round one is his record in deciding frames this season, with 5 wins in 6 played.
John Higgins has been the most impressive player so far this season winning two major ranking event titles and the statistics back that up as he currently tops the prize money list for this season.
However, Higgins will be wanting to break his run of form in recent UK Championships. Since winning the 2010 edition he has lost in the Last 16 every year, twice to Maguire (2011 and 2013), to Mark Davis in 2012 after making a 147 and to Anthony McGill in 2014. In the 2013 and 2014 editions, John was even knocked on the same date, so it's very much a case of remember remember the 3rd of December for John.
In the last 4 finals at the UK Championships, at least one of Judd Trump or Mark Selby has been present but on neither of those 4 occasions did they play each other, and of the two finals each has been in they have both won one and lost one.
Stuart Bingham also has a good record in recent UK Championships making semi-finals in both of the last two years, whilst also making the quarter-finals in 2012.
Shaun Murphy however, will want to go one better than last year after losing 6-5 in the Last 16, just as he did in 2013. In both of those 6-5 Last 16 defeats, he also led at one stage by a 2-0 scoreline.
Watch out for the players that both Michael Holt and Joe Perry lose to this week (if they don't win the tournament). Joe Perry has lost to the winner of all three ranking events so far this season, twice to Higgins in the quarter-final stages and in the first round of the Shanghai Masters to Kyren Wilson. Michael Holt though takes it a step further. As well as losing to Wilson in Shanghai and Higgins at the International, he lost to Gould in Australia who was eventual runner-up, Ford in Riga who was also eventual runner-up. At the Paul Hunter Classic Michael lost in the semi-finals to Ali Carter who went on to beat Shaun Murphy in the final, and most recently in Bulgaria Holt lost in the Last 16 to Mark Allen who again went on to win the tournament. Meanwhile, Perry also lost in the semi-finals of the invitational Champion of Champions event to Neil Robertson who again was the eventual winner.
Stuart Bingham's results this season prove why no lead is ever safe. At the Champion of Champions he lost 4-3 from 3-1 ahead for the third time this season, also doing it at the Ruhr Open to Fergal O'Brien and in the Paul Hunter Classic to John Higgins. Fergal O'Brien also caused him pain in Australia by beating Bingham 5-4 by winning all of the last three frames once more.
Not only has Shaun Murphy had a problem getting past the Last 16 in the last two UK Championships he has also had the problem over the course of this season so far. In all of the International Championship, Champion of Champions, Shanghai Masters, Riga Open and Ruhr Open he has lost in the Last 16. It was a similar problem for Murphy in the 2013-2014 as he lost at the Last 16 stage in six full ranking event tournaments, the Champion of Champions and one European Tour event.
Neil Robertson may not be the best man for a deciding frame this week. The last 10 times he has lost since losing the Masters final, 7 of those 10 losses have been in deciding frames. The exceptions have been at the International Championship, Welsh Open and Players Championship Finals.
Of the 5 different losing semi-finalists in the last three years at the UK Championship, only one of those has ever gotten past that stage previously. Former UK champion Stephen Maguire is the exception while Mark Davis, Stuart Bingham (twice), Ricky Walden (twice if you include 2011) and Ali Carter are the followers of the trend.
The rolling 147 prize has hit £40,000 for the UK Championships and the reason why this is big news is because there has been a 147 in all of the last three UK Championships. Ronnie O'Sullivan made one against Matt Selt in the Last 16 in 2014, while when the rolling prize got to similar heights in 2013 Mark Selby made a magical maximum in the semi-finals. John Higgins made one in a losing effort against Mark Davis in 2012, while another two came in qualifying that year also from Jack Lisowski and Andy Hicks.
If Mark Selby and Ryan Day get as far as the Last 16 and play each other it will be their third meeting in the last 5 UK Championships, with Selby winning the previous two in 2011 and 2012.
Shaun Murphy and Marco Fu are also due to meet in the Last 16 if both make it that far, and that will be a repeat of their Last 16 match from last year where Marco won 6-5. It would also be a repeat of their 2008 UK final which Shaun managed to win in a decider. It would also be their eighth meeting in one of snookers three triple crown events, with Fu only winning one of those.
Mark Williams and Judd Trump are another two payers who could meet in the last 16 this year, and if they do it would be their seventh meeting in the last 12 months starting in last December's Lisbon Open and with the latest coming in September's Shanghai Masters. The previous six meetings in this period have been shared, while three of the six have gone to deciding frames Trump winning two of those.
That's all from this edition of the stat attack, plenty to keep you interested there I hope and give you that extra bit of insight in addition to my full tournament preview, with some good statistics to help you gather your own ideas as to who could win this years UK Championships.
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