With the Welsh Open upcoming, there's never a bad time for some statistics in an event that has changed over the years to what we have now with 128 players at the venue. As always the idea of this blog is to offer up some statistics that balance or back up the opinions of my regular preview.
The 128 at the venue format for the Welsh Open came into effect in 2014, so plenty of the following stats will be relevant to that change, and there will always be some facts and figures from the season so far to give a clearer idea of form.
I'm going to start off by dealing with Shaun Murphy who himself has certainly recognised his struggles at this tournament. The first four times he played at the venue from 2006-2009 he was a runner-up on one occasions, a losing semi-finalist twice and reached the quarter-finals in the other. In his six appearances since then he has only gotten past the Last 32 once, reaching the semi-finals in 2012.
That is a big contrast with defending champion John Higgins. John has won the Welsh Open four times, with three of those wins coming within the last six years, and in 2014 he lost out in the quarter-finals.
Ding Junhui has struggled a lot since winning five ranking events in the 2013/2014 season, but that could all end this week in Wales. While there is a big contrast in the last two appearances (runner-up to O'Sullivan in 2014 and Last 128 exit to Lee Walker in 2015) he had gotten to at least the quarter-finals for four years in a row from 2011-2014.
Mark Selby was Welsh Open champion in 2008 and in his 7 appearances since then he has reached one final, one semi-final and three further quarter-finals so his record in Wales is far from bad either.
Murphy isn't the only one to have struggled at the Welsh Open in recent times. Neil Robertson, since winning the title in 2007, has only gotten past the last 16 once from eight attempts.
Another man who has a particular fondness for playing in Wales at this time of year is Stephen Maguire. In six of the last seven events, the Scot has reached at least the quarter-finals with one title and one runners-up finish.
Amazingly, when you look at matches played in the Welsh Open, John Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan have almost identical records. Higgins has played in 23 tournaments, 81 matches, winning 62 while the Rocket has played in 22 events, 80 matches winning 61.
Ronnie O'Sullivan has also partaken in many a decider over the years. 27 is his overall total played, from which he has won 17. Meanwhile, his first round opponent Barry Pinches is joint fifth on the list for deciders played, winning 10 out of 17 in the Welsh Open. Surely not?
Keep an eye on Alan McManus this week in the draw, he has lost to the eventual winner of the Welsh Open on six occasions in the events history, while Ronnie O'Sullivan, John Higgins, Peter Ebdon and Anthony Hamilton are all tied in second losing to the eventual winner on five occasions.
When it comes to the opening round this week, the likes of Michael Holt, Kyren Wilson and Zhou Yuelong, Tian Pengfei and Martin Gould have all won 100% of their first matches in a tournament so they'll be hoping to keep that up.
Best-of-7 frame matches will produce plenty of deciders, and Tom Ford has been impressive in final frames this year with 6 wins from 7 played, while Ben Woollaston has 8 from 10.
The centuries table for this season is also getting interesting and very close. Selby, Fu and Mark Williams all have 23, while Mark Allen and Neil Robertson both have 25, John Higgins is in second position with 27 and Judd Trump tops the pile with 31.
At the Welsh Open in the last two years (with a 128 flat draw at the venue) there was 58 centuries in 2015 slightly bettering 54 from 2014 and after the lack of centuries at the recent German Masters it will be interesting to see how 2016 aligns with the previous two tournaments.
When it comes to the final, in both of the last two years the score was 9-3 and on three of the last six occasions the final has been won by a margin of at least five frames so it may not be a close finish to the event.
There's not a great deal to see in terms of head to heads for the Last 128 round, but it is worth mentioning that Ronnie O'Sullivan last met first round opponent Barry Pinches in 2014, in an Ronnie went on to win.
Meanwhile, when Li Hang takes on Chris Melling it will be their second appearance, with the first coming in 2015 World Championship qualifying and finishing 10-1 to Li Hang. Emphatic.
As for Stuart Bingham and Anthony Hamilton this will be their ninth proper meeting and third in the space of three months after Bingham beat Hamilton 6-3 in the UK Championship and 5-4 in German Masters qualifying. Prior to this season Bingham had only won two of the previous six.
Those are the stats coming into the week then, some may come into play again while others could be blown out of the water. That's the beauty of it. Hopefully these stats together with my preview can influence who you pick out for the Welsh Open this week.
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