Heading into the start of the International Championship I have decided to combine the Stat Attack with a shortened version of the tournament top ten blog in order for me to ensure that each of my pre-tournament features was still produced.
This week also sees a change in how the statistics I work on have been presented, attempting to make them slightly easier on the eye rather than a big clump of information. As always these statistics are based on the performances from the start of the season and are as follows, the frames per 50+ break, average contribution when a player makes a break of 50+, close frames win percentage, average frame aggregates (average points scored per frame - average points conceded per frame) and the quarter-finals or better reached since the start of the 2014/2015 season.
As we know, the International Championship has been staged four times previously from 2012 to 2015, while this years will be the second year in Daqing after the tournament moved there last year.
TOURNAMENT SPECIFIC STATISTICS:
- Marco Fu has won more matches in the International Championship than anyone with 18 wins, while Mark Allen has won 15 but failed to qualify for this years tournament.
- Marco Fu has also played in more deciders than anyone else playing at the International Championship this week winning four out of seven he has played in this competition. Ryan Day is three out of three in this competition meanwhile and Michael White is three out of four in International deciders.
- Ricky Walden has won more money than anyone else from the International Championship (having won the tournament in 2014), the other three former winners take the next three spaces (Ding, Higgins and Trump). Marco Fu has won most money out of anyone never to have won the tournament.
- In terms of head to heads, Ken Doherty will be looking to end a record of heavy defeats against Ricky Walden, who has beaten Doherty 6-1, 5-1 and 5-2 in their three most recent meetings.
- Sam Baird has already beaten Michael White twice this year, including at the World Championship, ahead of their Last 64 meeting.
- Ding Junhui will meet Mitchell Mann for the second tournament in succession, following a 4-0 win over Mann at the English Open.
PLAYER PERFORMANCES KEY INDICATORS:
*Each of the following "Best Five/Worst Five" lists only takes into account the players still in the tournament, including those with Last 128 matches held over for the main venue.
Close Frames Percentage:
Best Five:
1st: Yan Bingtao (86.67%)
2nd: Alfie Burden (80%)
3rd: Liang Wenbo (78.26%)
4th: Mark Joyce (75%)
5th: Mark Selby (74.07%)
Worst Five:
1st: Robbie Williams (11.11%)
2nd: Jimmy Robertson (23.31%)
3rd: Mitchell Mann (30%)
4th: Tian Pengfei (30.77%)
5th: Michael White (33.33%)
When it comes to close frames, most players are around the 50/60% mark, which makes Yan Bingtao's efforts particularly impressive, and the efforts of someone like Robbie Williams very surprising. It's no surprise to see Mark Selby in the top five, particularly given that he has had a good start to the season. Liang Wenbo's high percentage would have certainly helped him in winning the English Open last week. Tian Pengfei's lower percentage sums up for him, what has been a very poor season so far.
Average Frames Per 50+:
Best Five:
1st: Neil Robertson (2.08)
2nd: Ronnie O'Sullivan (2.19)
3rd: Marco Fu (2.43)
4th: Anthony McGill (2.46)
5th: Judd Trump (2.49)
Worst Five:
1st: Sydney Wilson (13)
2nd: Wang Yuchen (10.5)
3rd: Paul Davison (10.33)
4th: Ken Doherty (9.71)
5th: Ross Muir (9.43)
It will come as no surprise to anyone that Neil Robertson and Ronnie O'Sullivan are the leaders when it comes to making 50+ breaks, while Judd Trump is coming into this tournament off of a tournament win and a tournament final in successive tournaments so you would also expect him in the top five, Anthony McGill's impressive figures are thanks to his early season form, while Marco Fu is the surprising man of the top five as he has not had the best of starts to this season so far, but clearly his scoring has not suffered because of that and good things could be around the corner for him.
Meanwhile, it would be fair to say each of the players in the bottom five for the season so far have had poor starts to the season, and for the likes of Sydney Wilson and Paul Davison their Last 128 matches have been held over.
Average break when 50 and above:
Best Five:
1st: Marco Fu (82.4)
2nd: John Higgins (81.88)
3rd: David Gilbert (81.16)
4th: Anthony McGill (80.93)
5th: Liang Wenbo (80.53)
Worst Five:
1st: Oliver Lines (58.13)
2nd: Lee Walker (59.36)
3rd: Paul Davison (59.5)
4th: Wang Yuchen (60.25)
5th: Jamie Jones (66.06)
Marco Fu also features very heavily on the weight of 50+ breaks he is making, which is even more surprising with his poor results to be making breaks of such weight so frequently and still not getting to the back end of tournaments. There is little surprise in the remainder of the players in the top five, all very heavy scorers. Higgins has reached a number of quarter-finals this season so this could be his week to kick on, while McGill and Liang are of course tournament winners this season.
Paul Davison once again features in the bottom five, along with Wang Yuchen. It is slightly surprising to see Jamie Jones so low on the list given that he came through the qualifying rounds to reach the main draw of the Shanghai Masters, whilst it is difficult to know what to make of Lee Walker and Oli Line's numbers here, but clearly any heavy scoring has deserted them this season.
Average Frame Aggregate:
Best Five:
1st: Anthony McGill (22.11)
2nd: Shaun Murphy (21.67)
3rd; Judd Trump (20.95)
4th: Ding Junhui (20.36)
5th: David Gilbert (19.53)
Worst Five:
1st: Sydney Wilson (-28.92)
2nd: Paul Davison (-23.36)
3rd: Aditya Mehta (-19.4)
4th: Mitchell Mann (-18.64)
5th: Wang Yuchen (-15.97)
The same faces have come up again in the bottom five, with Sydney Wilson, Paul Davison and Mitchell Mann all to play their Last 128 matches against Higgins, Selby and Ding as heldover matches. Aditya Mehta meanwhile only one his first match of the season in the qualifiers for this event.
In the top five we have McGill once again who has had a brilliant season so far, and other tournament winners in Judd Trump and Ding Junhui. Shaun Murphy's high aggregate was helped mainly by very strong showings in the World and Indian Open's, with poorer results in more recent weeks. David Gilbert's heavy scoring in many of his wins is the product of such a high aggregate, sneaking him into fifth position.
Quarter-finals or better since 2014/2015:
Top Five:
1st: Judd Trump (12)
2nd: Stuart Bingham (11)
3rd: Mark Selby, Neil Robertson and John Higgins (10)
Another tournament final for Judd Trump at the English Open saw him stay out in front on the quarter-finals or better statistic, while a semi-final for Stuart Bingham in Manchester separates him from Mark Selby, Neil Robertson who had early exits in Manchester to follow semi-final losses at the European Masters. John Higgins has joined Selby and Robertson on ten after another quarter-final at the English Open which saw him lose to Trump in the quarter-final stages for the second event in a row.
TOURNAMENT TOP TEN:
10 - Ricky Walden
9- Ronnie O'Sullivan
8 - Ali Carter
7- Marco Fu
6 - Mark Selby
5 - Liang Wenbo
4 - John Higgins
3 - Ding Junhui
2 - Neil Robertson
1 - Judd Trump
The tournament top ten for this week is incorporated of past finishes in the four stagings of the International Championships, the UK Championships of 2015, results this season in the recent English Open, European Masters but also the two Chinese ranking events in the Shanghai Masters and World Open. That also goes along with the statistics that have all been mentioned above.
In tenth we find Ricky Walden who is a former winner of this event from 2014, and with that in mind he is surprisingly low on the list which is mainly as he does not sit strongly in any statistics and has only a singular quarter-final this season, from the English Open.
Ninth is Ronnie O'Sullivan, in part because this is only the third time that he has entered the tournament, though he is a past quarter-finalist from 2014. O'Sullivan exited in the Last 16 in Shanghai and the Last 32 in Manchester but did have a final appearance in Romania, which helped near the top of the frames per 50+ break stat.
In eighth place is Ali Carter who's cancer treatments in previous years saw him miss this event a couple of times, else he may have been higher up the list. Carter features on the list mostly thanks to his win at the World Open in the summer and a quarter-final in the Shanghai Masters so he may have a third good run in the third Chinese event of the season.
Seventh position is where we see Marco Fu. Fu was a narrow runner-up to Ding in 2013, but has also reached the quarter-finals in all of the other three stagings of the International Championships, as well as a quarter-final in last years UK Championships. Added to this are his showings in the top five of both statistics related to 50+ breaks as were shown above.
World Champion Mark Selby is down in sixth position for this week. A runner-up in Shanghai he also made the semi-finals of the European Masters and going back to 2015 he made the semi-finals of both the International and UK Championships over a very similar format. Selby's best statistical showings as we saw, were in the quarter-finals or better statistic and the close frames win percentage.
Heading into the top five is recent English Open champion Liang Wenbo. That win was always going to shoot him very high up the list, but added to that is the fact that (over a similar format) he was a runner-up in the 2015 UK Championships, and has been a former quarter-finalist in this event. He also appeared above in a couple of the top fives in the close frames win percentage and average break per 50+.
Fourth position is where defending champion John Higgins appears on the list, mainly because of his win in this tournament a year ago, Added to that are a number of quarter-finals, starting in last year's UK Championships and going on to include to the World Open, and the two most recent events in Romania and Manchester. Statistically his quarter-finals or better number is high on the list along with his average break per 50+.
On the podium is the 2013 champion Ding Junhui. Ding has also been a winner this season at the Shanghai Masters, and would probably be leading the list if he would have backed that performance up in any of the other tournaments. Statistically the Chinese number 1 is in the top five for average frame aggregates that were displayed above, Clearly, he is serious contender this week.
In the runners-up spot this week is Neil Robertson. Robertson was also a runner-up the first time the International Championships was staged in 2012. Add to that a good start to the season that has included semi-finals at both the World Open and European Masters and Robertson looks like a top challenger this week. Statistically it is no surprise to see a scorer like Robertson in first place for frames per 50+ break, and he features in the quarter-finals or better statistic.
That means that this weeks tournament top ten leader is the very first International Champion Judd Trump. Trump has been flying in recent weeks with a final at the English Open to add to his European Masters victory and it really is no surprise to see him at the top of the list. He also leads this weeks field when it comes to quarter-finals or better, as well as featuring in the top five for average frame aggregates and average frames per 50+ so he is certainly worthy of the number one ranking on all fronts.
That is all of the statistical analysis offered up ahead of Sunday's start in the International Championship, and it will be interesting as always to see how closely things run to how the numbers would expect them to.
Still to come I will have my full tournament preview with my quarter choice's and winning selection before the tournament is underway.
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