As much as I call this a 'Stat Attack' it has to be said this week we are going more for a 'Stats Extravaganza' ahead of this season's first triple crown event, the UK Championships. As always I will have my stats on average frames per 50+ break, average contribution when 50 or above, close frame win percentage, average frame aggregate and quarter-finals or better in ranking events since the start of the 2014/2015 season. On top of that will be some facts and figures on the most recent UK Championships and other tournament related facts, as well as all of the head to head information you need for the first round and beyond.
TOURNAMENT RELATED STATISTICS
- John Higgins lost in the UK Championship Last 16 from 2011-2014 before breaking this duck last year by making the quarter-finals.
- Since making the 2012 UK Championship final Shaun Murphy has gone on a run of three successive Last 16 exits from 2013-2015 in York. The last two of these were both against Marco Fu, though Fu is not in Murphy's section this week.
- Joe Perry has only gotten past the UK Championships Last 32 once in the last five years.
- Mark Williams has not made it past the Last 32 of the UK Championships since 2011.
- Marco Fu has been knocked out of every ranking event this season prior to the Last 16 stages.
- In each of the last four UK Championships somebody has made a maximum 147 break during the TV stages.
- In terms of deciding frames, each of Robin Hull, Jimmy Robertson, Ben Woollaston and Paul Davison each have a 100% record in UK Championship deciders having played in at least three deciders.
- Meanwhile, in deciders this season John Higgins has a 100% record from seven deciding frames, and Judd Trump has a 100% from six deciding frames. Zhou Yuelong has four wins out of four deciders.
HEAD TO HEAD
- Xiao Guodong will meet John Astley for the second tournament in a row, with Astley winning their match at the Northern Irish Open 4-3. That was despite Xiao scoring 167 more points in the match than Astley.
- Prior to their opening round match here Liam Highfield has won both previous matches he has played against Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, the latest being a 5-1 win in this years China Open.
- Martin Gould has beaten Gareth Allen on every occasion they have played, with Gould looking to make it four out of four in the Last 128 of the UK Championship.
- Judd Trump has never lost to James Wattana in six previous meetings against the Thai player. The most recent of these came in the Last 16 of the International Championship where Trump came out on top 6-3.
- The last time that Yu DeLu played Nigel Bond was way back in the 2012 UK Championship, with the Chinese man coming out on top 6-5.
- The only time Shaun Murphy has previously met Itaro Santos, the one frame Santos got on the board saw him miss the final red going for a maximum break.
- Anthony McGill and Craig Steadman come into their Last 128 match at the UK Championship off the back of an epic tie in this years World Championship Qualifiers where McGill edged out Steadman 10-9.
- Rod Lawler and Mark Allen could in round two in York, with Lawler winning 6-4 in the 2014 UK Championships against Allen which was the last time they met.
- Shaun Murphy could play Robin Hull should both make the Last 64, having beaten Hull 6-4 in the Last 64 of the International Championships just a few weeks ago, coming from 3-1 behind to do so.
- Luca Brecel and Mark King could meet in the Last 64, though King will be hoping that the Belgium loses in the Last 128 round based on their head to head. Brecel has won each of their four previous games most recently at the this years Welsh Open. The list also includes a Last 16 tie from the 2012 UK Championships where Brecel came from 0-3 adrift to win 6-4.
Looking slightly further ahead in the draw if things go accordingly...
- Peter Ebdon could have an all Vegan battle against Neil Robertson in the Last 32 with Ebdon having beaten Robertson in three of their last four meetings, including most recently at the 2016 World Grand Prix.
- Ronnie O'Sullivan could face a repeat of a memorable match in this year's Last 32 should both he and Matthew Selt make it that far. In 2014 O'Sullivan beat Selt 6-0 in the Last 16 of the UK Championship and if the whitewash was not enough he also made a maximum 147 break.
- Ding Junhui and Alan McManus could meet in the Last 32 for their first meeting since the semi-finals of this years World Championship.
- Anthony McGill could face Kyren Wilson in the Last 32 of the UK Championships with Wilson the 15th seed and McGill 18th seed. Not only would it be a repeat of the Indian Open final from this year, but also a demonstration of how far both players have come. In the 2013 UK Championships they met in the Last 128 round with McGill coming from 3-0 down to win 6-5.
- Mark Allen and Mark Selby could meet in the quarter-finals for what would be their third quarter-final meeting inside of the last month.
- Shaun Murphy is seeded to meet Stuart Bingham in the quarter-finals in a match that would have plenty to live up to. Their last three meetings have been a World Championship final finishing 18-15 to Bingham, the final of this years World Grand Prix ending 10-9 to Murphy and the semi-final of the China Championship a few weeks ago which Bingham triumphed in 9-8.
TOURNAMENT SPECIFIC STATISTICS
Average Frame Aggregate:
This week's Top 10:
Mark Selby = 19.03
Judd Trump = 17.39
Ronnie O'Sullivan = 17.16
Neil Robertson = 16.97
David Gilbert = 16.95
John Higgins = 16.75
Stephen Maguire = 15.81
Barry Hawkins = 15.48
Anthony McGill = 15.01
Ding Junhui = 14.4
Mark Selby leads the average frame aggregate list coming into this week after a very good season so far winning two tournaments and making another final. There is a small drop before we reach Trump who has made two finals this season winning one of them. O'Sullivan, Robertson and Gilbert then follow in quick succession, which reflects more Robertson and Gilbert's performances earlier on in the season. John Higgins comes in six after his consecutive invitational title wins, while Hawkins has climbed up the list after making the final of last week's Northern Irish Open.
This week's Bottom 10:
Darryl Hill = -38.96
Sydney Wilson = -32.53
Jason Weston = -30.87
Christopher Keogan = -26.37
Paul Davison = -26.37
David John = -25.08
Alex Borg = -24.48
Kurt Dunham = -22
Michael Wild = -21.98
Noppon Saengkham = -19.77
Darryl Hill is still bottom of the pile having not won a game this season, while Sydney Wilson has been similarly poor. Wins at the Irish Open for Alex Borg and Kurt Dunham have seen them rise up a small amount on the list and seen Jason Weston drop a little. Chris Keogan and Paul Davison are level with the joint fourth worst record after a series of defeats while Noppon Saengkham has been dropping after a poor season also.
Average Frames Per 50+ Break:
This week's Top 10:
- Ronnie O'Sullivan - 2.14
- Neil Robertson - 2.25
- Judd Trump - 2.42
- Mark Selby - 2.52
- Ding Junhui - 2.52
- Mark Allen - 2.58
- John Higgins - 2.61
- Shaun Murphy - 2.66
- Liang Wenbo - 2.69
- Anthony McGill - 2.7
When it comes to the best and most frequent scorers it is no surprise to see O'Sullivan top of the pile, with Neil Robertson and Judd Trump close behind. Selby has scored frequently in his tournament wins this season while Ding, Allen, Higgins and Murphy are all known as frequent and heavy scorers before we reach Liang Wenbo and Anthony McGill further down who are both tournament winners of this season so far.
This week's Bottom 10: *
- Jason Weston - 17.67
- Sydney Wilson - 12.75
- Boonyarit Kaettikun - 12.75
- Christopher Keogan - 12.6
- Alex Borg - 11.6
- Elliot Slessor - 11
- Kurt Dunham - 10.5
- David John - 10.4
- Ross Muir - 10
- Noppon Saengkham - 9.17
At the bottom we again find the likes of Jason Weston, Sydney Wilson and Christopher Keogan. Boonyarit Kaettikun has also struggled in the early season, though avoided the bottom of the aggregate list after a series of tight loses. Meanwhile, many of the names on the list also appeared at the bottom of the aggregate list, though guys like Ross Muir and Elliot Slessor have been slightly disappointing with their scoring frequency.
*Darryl Hill is yet to make a 50+ break this season and therefore has no average.
Average Break when 50 or above: *
This week's Top 10:
- Jak Jones - 84.5
- Michael White - 82.43
- Li Hang - 81.86
- Marco Fu - 81.78
- Stephen Maguire - 81.45
- David Gilbert - 80.93
- Ronnie O'Sullivan - 80.6
- Judd Trump - 80.55
- Liang Wenbo - 80.55
- Martin O'Donnell - 80.36
When it comes to break size, top of the pile is Jak Jones quite surprisingly. Michael White has climbed up the list after a heavy scoring run to the Irish Open quarter-finals. Then we have Li Hang, Marco Fu and Stephen Maguire who have been close to the top of this list for most of the season, along with David Gilbert, Ronnie O'Sullivan, Judd Trump and Liang Wenbo who are all known for heavy scorers and all featured on the break frequency list to accompany this. Martin O'Donnell completes the top ten as another non-top 16 presence in the list.
This week's Bottom 10:
- Oliver Lines - 58.35
- Dechawat Poomjaeng - 58.71
- Gareth Allen - 61
- Paul Davison - 62.18
- Zhang Yong - 62.75
- Nigel Bond - 64.46
- Lee Walker - 64.62
- Allan Taylor - 64.69
- Adam Duffy - 65.06
- Liam Highfield - 65.21
Oliver Lines is still bottom of the pile for scoring weight along with Dechawat Poomjaeng who have been near the bottom here for a number of weeks. Rhys Clark made a couple of centuries against Lee Walker to climb out of the bottom ten which has relegated the likes of Liam Highfield who was not present at the Irish Open last week. Paul Davison, Zhang Yong, Lee Walker, Nigel Bond and Allan Taylor all remain in the bottom ten following events in Belfast.
*Only those with enough more than 10 50+ breaks have been counted in order to make a fair average
Close Frames Win Percentage:
This week's Top 10:
- Ian Preece - 85.71%
- Yan Bingtao - 80.95%
- Michael Georgiou - 78.95%
- Stephen Maguire - 75%
- Mark Joyce - 73.33%
- Thepchaiya Un-Nooh - 71.43%
- Mark Selby - 69.05%
- Liang Wenbo - 68.97%
- Kyren Wilson - 68.42%
- Kurt Maflin - 65.52%
- After the Irish Open Ian Preece still leads the way for win percentage on close frames, with Yan Bingtao falling a little further behind in second. Michael Georgiou, Stephen Maguire and Mark Joyce are all impressive with percentages around the 3 out of 4 mark. It is no surprise to see the gritty players like Mark Selby and Kyren Wilson at the top of this list also, while guys like Liang Wenbo, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Kurt Maflin may actually benefit on this list from their heavy scoring to steal frames coming from behind.
This week's Bottom 10:
- Yu DeLu - 18.18%
- Darryl Hill - 20%
- Alex Borg - 20%
- Thor Chuan Leong- 20%
- Fang Xiongman - 20%
- Robbie Williams - 21.74%
- Cao Yupeng - 23.08%
- Mitchell Mann - 23.08%
- Ian Burns - 27.27%
- Noppon Saengkham - 28.57%
- Yu De Lu is planted at the bottom of the list despite a better week that saw him beat Ding Junhui in the first round in Belfast. Darryl Hill and Alex Borg's poor starts to the season have been summarised here once again. Robbie Williams is still low here despite making the Last 32 in Belfast so clearly a prowess in winning close frames was not needed for those victories. Noppon Saengkham features in the bottom ten of another list, falling in here after Mark Davis climbed out of the bottom ten this week. Cao Yupeng has a 1 in 4 win percentage, which is interesting given his first round opponent in York is Stephen Maguire who has a 3 in 4 win percentage.
Quarter-Finals since the start of the 2014/2015 season:
This week's Top 10:
Judd Trump - 13
Stuart Bingham - 12
Mark Selby and John Higgins - 11
Ding Junhui and Neil Robertson - 10
Shaun Murphy, Joe Perry, Mark Williams and Stephen Maguire - 9
When it comes to making the latter stages Judd Trump has been doing it well all season long after good seasons in the two prior to this. Stuart Bingham has been chasing him down all year making three consecutive semi-finals earlier in the season. Mark Selby and John Higgins are level on 11 after Higgins three consecutive quarter-finals from earlier in the season. A quarter-final for Mark Williams at the Irish Open has seen him climb up into the top ten to join Shaun Murphy, Joe Perry and Stephen Maguire.
That is all from my statistical preview of the upcoming UK Championships, but do not forget there is still the small matter of my full preview to come.
Also you can view my earlier UK Championship Tournament Top Ten by taking a trip to this page:
http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/uk-championships-tournament-top-ten.html
Monday, 21 November 2016
UK Championships: Tournament Top Ten
The start in my build-up this week to the UK Championship is the 'Tournament Top Ten' blog. Thrown into the generator for this year's first Triple Crown event were the English Open (when most of the tour were present on UK soil), the Chinese equivalent to this event with the International Championship which took place just a few weeks ago. Also included were two major invitational events of the last few weeks at the China Championship and Champion of Champions. Along with that I give prominence to the most recent stagings of this event from 2015 all the way back to 2011.
In addition to previous results are my statistics of, average frame aggregate, average frames per 50+ break, average break when 50 or above, close frames win percentage and the players to make the most quarter-finals since the start of the 2014-2015 season.
Let's get into then and see who topped the tables on all of these fronts to make it into the UK Championships 'Tournament Top Ten'
10- Ding Junhui - Ding Junhui does not have the best record in the UK Championships in recent years. Only once in the last four years has Ding even reached the Last 16 in York, losing out in the very first round a year ago before the TV stages began. In recent times, the Chinese player made the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions, making four centuries in a 6-5 loss to John Higgins. Prior to that in the Chinese equivalent of this event, the International Championship, Ding made it all the way to the final before being thrashed by Mark Selby. Statistically Ding is fifth on the quarter-finals or better list with 10 quarter-finals in the last two and a half seasons. He is also fifth in the average frames per 50+ break table averaging one every 2.52 frames. However, his UK Championships record is not good enough to see him higher up the table.
9- Shaun Murphy - Next up is Shaun Murphy, who has been knocked out in the Last 16 of the UK Championships for three years running, after getting to the final in York in 2012. His form this season has been patchy, though a quarter-final in the International Championships and a semi-final in the recent China Championships which help to boost his ranking here. He does not appear at the very top of any statistics list and that fact along with his recent UK record of not getting past the Last 16 see him as low as ninth.
8- Stephen Maguire - Stephen Maguire has a very good UK Championship record having made the quarter-finals twice in the last five years, adding to those a semi-final in 2014 while his other two exits came in the Last 16 which is a reasonably impressive record. In recent times he has no results of note which mean that he stays in the bottom half of this weeks top ten. However, he does appear at the top of a couple of statistics list which help to make up for this. He is fourth on the close frames win percentage list with a percentage of 75 which is very high. As well as this is a fifth placed finish on the average break when 50 or above list averaging 81.45 whenever he makes a break over 50.
7- Liang Wenbo - Liang Wenbo was of course last year's surprise finalist in York losing out to Neil Robertson. It would not be surprising if Liang made the final again this year though given that he has won his first ranking title in between at the English Open in Manchester. However, prior to the 2015 UK Championships Liang had a poor record which prevents him from getting any higher on this list, along with the fact that he does not appear at the summit on any of the major statistics lists for this week.
6- Stuart Bingham - Stuart Bingham has been one of the form men of the season so far, making semi-finals at the International Championship and English Open which both count to this list. Along with that he was the runner-up to John Higgins at the China Championship just a couple of weeks ago. His UK Championship record is a good one on the whole, making consecutive semi-finals in York in 2013 and 2014, as well as a quarter-final in 2012 and it would not be surprising if he were to go one better this year. He is second on the list of players with most quarter-finals since the beginning of the 2014//2015 season with an impressive 12 appearances in at least the quarter-finals of ranking events.
5- John Higgins - This season's form man comes in at five this week with John Higgins. Higgins snapped up both of the invitational titles of recent weeks by winning the China Championship and the Champion of Champions. Prior to this he had had consecutive quarter-finals at the International Championship and English Open. However, in terms of his record in the last five years of the UK Championship he has not always hit the same heights. From 2011-2014 he was knocked out in the Last 16 on every occasion, though he did improve that last year before losing to Neil Robertson in the quarter-finals. Statistically, Higgins comes in joint third on the list for quarter-finals or better in the last two and a half seasons, which only counts ranking events so would not have included his two recent wins.
4- Judd Trump - Judd Trump was level with Higgins in this weeks Top Ten list but finishes above him based on a superior record in this competition in the last five years. That record includes winning the title in 2011 and losing a decider in the 2014 final to O'Sullivan. He has also had a very good season, winning a title earlier on in the campaign that does not count to this weeks lists. His appearances in the English Open final and International Championship do count though and help him to this position in the list. Trump appears a lot statistically, topping the list for quarter-finals or better, coming in second on the list for average frame aggregate, and coming in third on the average frames per 50+ break list.
3- Neil Robertson - Neil Robertson is the defending UK champion having also previously won the UK title in 2013. His good record continued prior to winning the title, with a semi-final in 2011 and a quarter-final in 2012. Recently the Australian has not had many good results to cheer about, but he does still appear at the top of plenty of stats lists. Robertson's frequent scoring sees him second on the average frames per 50+ lists, while he also appears in fourth in the average frame aggregate standings and joint fifth for quarter-finals in the last two and a half years.
2- Ronnie O'Sullivan - Ronnie O'Sullivan pips Neil Robertson to second place with his superior average having not entered a couple of UK Championships. O'Sullivan did not complete his defence last year after winning the title in 2014. The year before he lost out in the quarter-finals to Stuart Bingham having also not entered in 2012 when he had the year off between World Championship wins. Most recently, O'Sullivan was a finalist at the Champion of Champions where he has a very good record. That performance helped O'Sullivan to the top of the average frames per 50+ break statistic, and third in the average frame aggregate list.
1- Mark Selby - Top of the charts though is the world number one Mark Selby. Selby took the title in York in 2012, and then had a brilliant defence of his title by making the final in 2013. More recently he reached the semi-finals last year before losing out to eventual winner Robertson once again. This season Selby has been a winner at the International Championship which stands him in good stead for this week. As far as the statistics list goes Selby tops the average frame aggregates list after this International win. His efforts that week also helped him up to fourth on the average frames per 50+ break list, and he is in joint third on the list for most ranking event quarter-finals in the last two and a half years. With all of this going for him, it is no surprise that Selby leads this weeks 'Tournament Top Ten'.
Not everything goes to plan in snooker, but if it did those players above would appear in the latter stages of the UK Championships.
Still to come on the blog this week is my Stat Attack blog and then my full UK Championships preview.
In addition to previous results are my statistics of, average frame aggregate, average frames per 50+ break, average break when 50 or above, close frames win percentage and the players to make the most quarter-finals since the start of the 2014-2015 season.
Let's get into then and see who topped the tables on all of these fronts to make it into the UK Championships 'Tournament Top Ten'
10- Ding Junhui - Ding Junhui does not have the best record in the UK Championships in recent years. Only once in the last four years has Ding even reached the Last 16 in York, losing out in the very first round a year ago before the TV stages began. In recent times, the Chinese player made the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions, making four centuries in a 6-5 loss to John Higgins. Prior to that in the Chinese equivalent of this event, the International Championship, Ding made it all the way to the final before being thrashed by Mark Selby. Statistically Ding is fifth on the quarter-finals or better list with 10 quarter-finals in the last two and a half seasons. He is also fifth in the average frames per 50+ break table averaging one every 2.52 frames. However, his UK Championships record is not good enough to see him higher up the table.
9- Shaun Murphy - Next up is Shaun Murphy, who has been knocked out in the Last 16 of the UK Championships for three years running, after getting to the final in York in 2012. His form this season has been patchy, though a quarter-final in the International Championships and a semi-final in the recent China Championships which help to boost his ranking here. He does not appear at the very top of any statistics list and that fact along with his recent UK record of not getting past the Last 16 see him as low as ninth.
8- Stephen Maguire - Stephen Maguire has a very good UK Championship record having made the quarter-finals twice in the last five years, adding to those a semi-final in 2014 while his other two exits came in the Last 16 which is a reasonably impressive record. In recent times he has no results of note which mean that he stays in the bottom half of this weeks top ten. However, he does appear at the top of a couple of statistics list which help to make up for this. He is fourth on the close frames win percentage list with a percentage of 75 which is very high. As well as this is a fifth placed finish on the average break when 50 or above list averaging 81.45 whenever he makes a break over 50.
7- Liang Wenbo - Liang Wenbo was of course last year's surprise finalist in York losing out to Neil Robertson. It would not be surprising if Liang made the final again this year though given that he has won his first ranking title in between at the English Open in Manchester. However, prior to the 2015 UK Championships Liang had a poor record which prevents him from getting any higher on this list, along with the fact that he does not appear at the summit on any of the major statistics lists for this week.
6- Stuart Bingham - Stuart Bingham has been one of the form men of the season so far, making semi-finals at the International Championship and English Open which both count to this list. Along with that he was the runner-up to John Higgins at the China Championship just a couple of weeks ago. His UK Championship record is a good one on the whole, making consecutive semi-finals in York in 2013 and 2014, as well as a quarter-final in 2012 and it would not be surprising if he were to go one better this year. He is second on the list of players with most quarter-finals since the beginning of the 2014//2015 season with an impressive 12 appearances in at least the quarter-finals of ranking events.
5- John Higgins - This season's form man comes in at five this week with John Higgins. Higgins snapped up both of the invitational titles of recent weeks by winning the China Championship and the Champion of Champions. Prior to this he had had consecutive quarter-finals at the International Championship and English Open. However, in terms of his record in the last five years of the UK Championship he has not always hit the same heights. From 2011-2014 he was knocked out in the Last 16 on every occasion, though he did improve that last year before losing to Neil Robertson in the quarter-finals. Statistically, Higgins comes in joint third on the list for quarter-finals or better in the last two and a half seasons, which only counts ranking events so would not have included his two recent wins.
4- Judd Trump - Judd Trump was level with Higgins in this weeks Top Ten list but finishes above him based on a superior record in this competition in the last five years. That record includes winning the title in 2011 and losing a decider in the 2014 final to O'Sullivan. He has also had a very good season, winning a title earlier on in the campaign that does not count to this weeks lists. His appearances in the English Open final and International Championship do count though and help him to this position in the list. Trump appears a lot statistically, topping the list for quarter-finals or better, coming in second on the list for average frame aggregate, and coming in third on the average frames per 50+ break list.
3- Neil Robertson - Neil Robertson is the defending UK champion having also previously won the UK title in 2013. His good record continued prior to winning the title, with a semi-final in 2011 and a quarter-final in 2012. Recently the Australian has not had many good results to cheer about, but he does still appear at the top of plenty of stats lists. Robertson's frequent scoring sees him second on the average frames per 50+ lists, while he also appears in fourth in the average frame aggregate standings and joint fifth for quarter-finals in the last two and a half years.
2- Ronnie O'Sullivan - Ronnie O'Sullivan pips Neil Robertson to second place with his superior average having not entered a couple of UK Championships. O'Sullivan did not complete his defence last year after winning the title in 2014. The year before he lost out in the quarter-finals to Stuart Bingham having also not entered in 2012 when he had the year off between World Championship wins. Most recently, O'Sullivan was a finalist at the Champion of Champions where he has a very good record. That performance helped O'Sullivan to the top of the average frames per 50+ break statistic, and third in the average frame aggregate list.
1- Mark Selby - Top of the charts though is the world number one Mark Selby. Selby took the title in York in 2012, and then had a brilliant defence of his title by making the final in 2013. More recently he reached the semi-finals last year before losing out to eventual winner Robertson once again. This season Selby has been a winner at the International Championship which stands him in good stead for this week. As far as the statistics list goes Selby tops the average frame aggregates list after this International win. His efforts that week also helped him up to fourth on the average frames per 50+ break list, and he is in joint third on the list for most ranking event quarter-finals in the last two and a half years. With all of this going for him, it is no surprise that Selby leads this weeks 'Tournament Top Ten'.
Not everything goes to plan in snooker, but if it did those players above would appear in the latter stages of the UK Championships.
Still to come on the blog this week is my Stat Attack blog and then my full UK Championships preview.
Sunday, 13 November 2016
Northern Ireland Open Preview
As the non-stop snooker calendar continues following two 16-man invitational events, the full 128 are back in action this week as the second of the home nations series events starts with the Northern Irish Open in Belfast. Liang Wenbo won the first of the series at English Open in Manchester back in October so he is the man we will all be watching to see if he can win again here and keep alive hopes of a clean sweep and the 1 million pound bonus for winning all four home nations tournaments.
The home favourite for this week will obviously be Northern Ireland's Mark Allen, who will be desperate to win this one in front of his home fans. Joe Swail will also be hoping for a good run on his home patch, while there are also two Northern Irish amateur invites in the field with Patrick Wallace and Jordan Brown.
As was the case with the English Open this event will be covered by Eurosport who will also air their coverage on freeview channel Quest (Just in the afternoons for the early rounds though as they did in Manchester) and hopefully their studio coverage can live up to what they have shown us both at the English Open, and when they have done it on previous occasions like at the German Masters.
Once again the draw for this week sees the top 16 seeds placed in the draw, and the remaining 112 players drawn at random which has once again thrown up some mouth watering ties that we would not normally see as early as the Last 128 stages of a tournament. Unfortunately though, this tournament will be lacking the winners of the last three World Championships as Mark Selby and Stuart Bingham have chosen not to enter, while Neil Robertson is another top 16 player who has decided not to take part this week and focus his energy on the defence of his UK title starting next week. Judd Trump and Ali Carter have pulled out since the draw which leaves only two top 16 seeds in the top quarter of the draw.
Let's take a look then at who is in the draw this week and what we can expect:
The remaining section of the draws top half is where we find last weeks Champion of Champions finalist Ronnie O'Sullivan who reached his second final of the season. However, in his three other events he lost twice in the Last 16 to Michael Holt, along with a Last 32 exit in the English Open. His draw looks very easy for the early rounds this week prior to the Last 16. There he could meet someone like Kyren Wilson who we have not seen since his Last 32 loss in the first home nations series event. Wilson did not qualify for the last two weeks of invite events and did not enter the International Championship for whatever reason. Wilson in fact suffered a number of early exits following his loss in the Indian Open final. Ben Woollaston could be a dark horse in this section as he seems to suit these home nation style events. He made the last 16 in Manchester and in the last two years of the Welsh Open he made the quarter-finals after his run to the 2015 final. Matt Selt and David Gilbert could also be dark horses though more recent form would suggest not. Mark Williams has struggled this season on the whole. Losses in his first match of the Shanghai Masters and European Masters saw poor performances, while he was embarrassed by a Chinese wildcard player in the Last 64 of the International Championship.
My second quarter choice has to be the man of the hour John Higgins. Higgins comes into the event having won the last two events in Guangzhou and Coventry and collecting £300,000 for doing so. With a couple of out of form players in this section of the top 16 seeds, I viewed this as another possible tussle between Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan and my belief is that as long as Higgins does not start to tire too much he is going to be a huge threat once again here. It is hard to see him losing too early and if he does win his first two or three matches easily he could be quickly back into full stride and a major threat. He will come to Belfast with supreme confidence and playing very close to his best, so there is no reason why he cannot threaten the latter stages once again.
As we enter the bottom half of the draw we find one of the ties of the first round as Luca Brecel takes on this weeks third seed Shaun Murphy. Murphy has had an up and down season making the quarter-finals of the World Open and semi's in India early on in the summer, before a run of earlier exits. A 5-0 loss in the Last 32 of the Shanghai Masters, was followed up with another Last 32 loss in Romania. He was unfortunate to lose out 4-3 to eventual champion Liang Wenbo as early as the last 64 of the English Open. Despite his "Annual day out to Coventry" losing in the first round of the Champion of Champions for the fourth year running his form has improved recently with a black ball decider loss to Judd Trump in a magnificent International Championship quarter-final, before making the China Championship semi's and losing out in another decider to Stuart Bingham in another high quality contest. Ricky Walden will be hoping to march on from his English Open quarter-final here where he is the fourteenth seed despite dropping out of the top 16. Walden therefore has work to do in Belfast and at the UK Championships coming up to get into the Masters in January. Other than that quarter-final in Manchester and a narrow last 16 exit at the International to Ding Junhui, Walden has little to look back fondly on this season with a number of earlier exits. After first round exits in the last two weeks of 16-man invitational action Joe Perry has now lost his first match in five of his last six events, with his only recent success being a quarter-final at the International Championship where he was lucky not to lose in the Last 64. July's World Open final must seem like a long time ago for Perry now. Michael Holt has been improving a lot over the course of the last year. Beating O'Sullivan to make the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters was a big win but to then do ait again a month later to reach the same stage of the International Championship shows greater consistency from Holt. On top of that he showed great bottle to beat Neil Robertson in the China Championship before losing 6-5 to Stuart Bingham (just as he had done in Daqing). Holt has a couple of potential tricky starters in this event but if he continues to beat top players with the regularity that he has been he could go far. Another harsh first round match sees Michael White taking on Graeme Dott where either player could potentially go on to have a good run in Belfast if they are playing well. Joe Swail may be a major dark horse to have a good week but as one of only two Northern Irish tour players in this event he will be hoping to get a couple of wins in front of his home fans and is more than capable of doing so.
The man I think will come through all of these stars this week is Barry Hawkins. Hawkins was a semi-finalist in the first of the home series events in Manchester, with a couple of Last 16 exits in the events prior to that and he will be hoping to re-create that in Belfast. After failing to qualify for the International Championship, China Championship and the Champion of Champions he has had plenty of time to relax and work on his game ahead of this tournament and the UK Championships which will follow. For someone of Hawkins often underrated qualities the ability to come in fresh and hopefully well tuned with his practice, should he play some expected rust off in the first couple of rounds then it would be easy to see him going from strength to strength in this section. A lot of players in this quarter face tough matches early on, so if Hawkins can come through his the question will be as to how many others do and that could work in his favour.
Home favourite Mark Allen is found in the very bottom quarter here but we will come back to him in more detail later. Meanwhile, Ding Junhui will have to pick himself up quickly after a semi-final loss to John Higgins 6-5 in the Champion of Champions despite the Chinese player making four centuries. Ding also impressed by making the International Championship final a couple of weeks ago, and already has a trophy in his cabinet for the 2016/2017 season having won the Shanghai Masters. On UK soil he is not always quite as strong, despite what his recent Coventry performance may suggest. Let's not forget that he lost in the last 32 of the English Open to Jak Jones completely out of nowhere, in what could go down as one of the surprise results of the season. Anthony McGill will be hoping to get back to form after losses in Last 64 of the International Championships in Daqing and the first home nations event in Manchester, before first round defeats in both of the recent invitational events. Marco Fu faces a very harsh first round tie against Ryan Day here in Belfast. Fu has not gotten past the Last 32 of a ranking event this season, which by the standards of a top 16 player is utterly shocking form. His only high point would have been a win over Ding Junhui to reach the quarter-finals of the China Championship though he was thrashed in that last eight tie against Shaun Murphy. Day has looked decent again this season without kicking on into the real latter stages of an event. So far he has had Last 16 exits in the English Open and World Open as well as a Shanghai Masters quarter-final, but by equal measure he has lost in the Last 64 of five events including a 6-2 thrashing against Aditya Mehta in Daqing (which is one of only two wins for Mehta on his return to tour). Watch out for dark horses in young Chinese Yan Bingtao who reached the Last 16 of the first home nations event in Manchester as well as narrowly losing in the Last 32 of the International Championship, on top of runs to the Last 16 of the Riga Masters and Paul Hunter Classic earlier in what has been a brilliant start to the season for the 16 year old. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh could also be a dark horse, though he has lost his first match in each of his three events (Shanghai Masters, English Open and International Championships) since consecutive semi-finals early in the season at the World Open and Paul Hunter Classic.
My final quarter choice is the home favourite Mark Allen. My thoughts on Allen coming into what is a major event for him were always going to be determined by his form coming in. If his form was poor I would have found it much easier to write him off if a lack of confidence combined with the pressure that comes with playing in your home Open getting too much. As he has had semi-finals in both of the China Championship and Champion of Champions in the last two weeks, and coming into those events fresh after a week or so off coming in and taking all of the summer off too he should still be fairly fresh coming here. Therefore he should be really fired up and inspired to do well in front of his home fans, that should also contain a lot of his friends and family. Looking at his draw, he faces his bogey player in round one but nothing will fire him up more than playing Mark Joyce given the fact that he will want for revenge for those defeats and has publicly expressed his dislike of Joyce. Beyond that the only players in his section that are anywhere near the top 32 are Ryan Day and Marco Fu who play each other in round one and neither has been in good form. It is foreseeable that Allen could cruise through the early rounds and then have plenty left in the tank for the latter stages.
The home favourite for this week will obviously be Northern Ireland's Mark Allen, who will be desperate to win this one in front of his home fans. Joe Swail will also be hoping for a good run on his home patch, while there are also two Northern Irish amateur invites in the field with Patrick Wallace and Jordan Brown.
As was the case with the English Open this event will be covered by Eurosport who will also air their coverage on freeview channel Quest (Just in the afternoons for the early rounds though as they did in Manchester) and hopefully their studio coverage can live up to what they have shown us both at the English Open, and when they have done it on previous occasions like at the German Masters.
Once again the draw for this week sees the top 16 seeds placed in the draw, and the remaining 112 players drawn at random which has once again thrown up some mouth watering ties that we would not normally see as early as the Last 128 stages of a tournament. Unfortunately though, this tournament will be lacking the winners of the last three World Championships as Mark Selby and Stuart Bingham have chosen not to enter, while Neil Robertson is another top 16 player who has decided not to take part this week and focus his energy on the defence of his UK title starting next week. Judd Trump and Ali Carter have pulled out since the draw which leaves only two top 16 seeds in the top quarter of the draw.
Let's take a look then at who is in the draw this week and what we can expect:
Quarter 1
Last 128 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Peter Ebdon W/O Judd Trump
Michael Wild Vs Adam Duffy
Christopher Keogan Vs Kurt Dunham
Robert Milkins Vs Scott Donaldson
Stephen Maguire Vs Alan McManus
Sanderson Lam Vs Wang Yuchen
Darryl Hill Vs Zak Surety
Rod Lawler Vs Hossein Vafei Ayouri
Kurt Maflin Vs Zhang Yong
Dechawat Poomjaeng Vs Alex Borg
Mike Dunn Vs Josh Boileau
Hamza Akbar W/O Ali Carter
Tian Pengfei Vs Fergal O'Brien
Thor Chuan Leong Vs Mitchell Mann
Mark King Vs Igor Figueredo
Liang Wenbo Vs Nigel Bond
In the very first quarter the eye is naturally drawn to English Open champion Liang Wenbo who is the only man left chasing the one million pound dream after that victory in October. He will have to improve his form though after two crushing first round exits in the Champion of Champions and China Championship invitationals in the last two weeks. Withdrawals this week of Judd Trump and Ali Carter mean that only he and Stephen Maguire are the top 16 seeds in this section. It's hard to pick a dark horse out in the draw, but after a fairly quiet start to the season Kurt Maflin could be due a good run this week, as he usually has a couple of good runs a season, with his best this year coming with a Last 16 at the World Open way back in July, and he has lost in the Last 32 three times since then. Meanwhile with a walkover in round one who knows how far Peter Ebdon could end up going in that section if he finds his form.
Non entries mean that my quarter choice Stephen Maguire became the sixteenth seed for this week. That did not see him avoid a tough draw though as he faces his fellow Scotsman Alan McManus in round one and that could be a tough test for him early on but if he can get through that there is a real chance for him here. With the withdrawals of Judd Trump and Ali Carter it really does leave a significant gap in the draw and I think that Maguire could be the man to come through it and make the semi-finals. His run to the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters was fantastic but he has not quite replicated that since, losing from 2-5 up to Ali Carter in the International Championship and probably losing at the English Open to Ryan Day when he was much the better player. When going through my statistics I was impressed by how well Maguire shapes up on all fronts and if he can replicate that this week there's no reason why he could not go very far.
Non entries mean that my quarter choice Stephen Maguire became the sixteenth seed for this week. That did not see him avoid a tough draw though as he faces his fellow Scotsman Alan McManus in round one and that could be a tough test for him early on but if he can get through that there is a real chance for him here. With the withdrawals of Judd Trump and Ali Carter it really does leave a significant gap in the draw and I think that Maguire could be the man to come through it and make the semi-finals. His run to the semi-finals of the Shanghai Masters was fantastic but he has not quite replicated that since, losing from 2-5 up to Ali Carter in the International Championship and probably losing at the English Open to Ryan Day when he was much the better player. When going through my statistics I was impressed by how well Maguire shapes up on all fronts and if he can replicate that this week there's no reason why he could not go very far.
Quarter Choice: Stephen Maguire
Quarter 2
Last 128 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs David John
Jimmy White Vs Gareth Allen
Zhang Anda Vs Ian Preece
Chris Wakelin Vs James Wattana
Kyren Wilson Vs Hammad Miah
Ben Woollaston Vs Jordan Brown
Akani Songsermsawad Vs Cao Yupeng
Mark Davis Vs Jason Weston
Matt Selt Vs Jamie Barrett
David Gilbert Vs Zhao Xintong
Alfie Burden Vs Craig Steadman
Mark Williams Vs David Grace
Matthew Stevens Vs Zhou Yuelong
Li Hang Vs Allan Taylor
Jamie Jones Vs Sam Craigie
John Higgins Vs Paul Davison
The remaining section of the draws top half is where we find last weeks Champion of Champions finalist Ronnie O'Sullivan who reached his second final of the season. However, in his three other events he lost twice in the Last 16 to Michael Holt, along with a Last 32 exit in the English Open. His draw looks very easy for the early rounds this week prior to the Last 16. There he could meet someone like Kyren Wilson who we have not seen since his Last 32 loss in the first home nations series event. Wilson did not qualify for the last two weeks of invite events and did not enter the International Championship for whatever reason. Wilson in fact suffered a number of early exits following his loss in the Indian Open final. Ben Woollaston could be a dark horse in this section as he seems to suit these home nation style events. He made the last 16 in Manchester and in the last two years of the Welsh Open he made the quarter-finals after his run to the 2015 final. Matt Selt and David Gilbert could also be dark horses though more recent form would suggest not. Mark Williams has struggled this season on the whole. Losses in his first match of the Shanghai Masters and European Masters saw poor performances, while he was embarrassed by a Chinese wildcard player in the Last 64 of the International Championship.
My second quarter choice has to be the man of the hour John Higgins. Higgins comes into the event having won the last two events in Guangzhou and Coventry and collecting £300,000 for doing so. With a couple of out of form players in this section of the top 16 seeds, I viewed this as another possible tussle between Higgins and Ronnie O'Sullivan and my belief is that as long as Higgins does not start to tire too much he is going to be a huge threat once again here. It is hard to see him losing too early and if he does win his first two or three matches easily he could be quickly back into full stride and a major threat. He will come to Belfast with supreme confidence and playing very close to his best, so there is no reason why he cannot threaten the latter stages once again.
Quarter Choice: John Higgins
Quarter 3
Last 128 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Shaun Murphy Vs Luca Brecel
Jamie Cope Vs Adam Stefanow
Michael White Vs Graeme Dott
Ross Muir Vs Chen Zhe
Ricky Walden Vs Sean O'Sullivan
Rory McLeod Vs Kritsanut Lertsattayatthorn
Tom Ford Vs Ian Burns
Dominic Dale Vs Joe Swail
Mei Xiwen Vs Duane Jones
Fraser Patrick Vs Marc Davis
Michael Holt Vs Stuart Carrington
Barry Hawkins Vs Martin O'Donnell
Jack Lisowski Vs David Lilley
Xiao Guodong Vs John Astley
Jimmy Robertson Vs Elliot Slessor
Joe Perry Vs Itaro Santos
As we enter the bottom half of the draw we find one of the ties of the first round as Luca Brecel takes on this weeks third seed Shaun Murphy. Murphy has had an up and down season making the quarter-finals of the World Open and semi's in India early on in the summer, before a run of earlier exits. A 5-0 loss in the Last 32 of the Shanghai Masters, was followed up with another Last 32 loss in Romania. He was unfortunate to lose out 4-3 to eventual champion Liang Wenbo as early as the last 64 of the English Open. Despite his "Annual day out to Coventry" losing in the first round of the Champion of Champions for the fourth year running his form has improved recently with a black ball decider loss to Judd Trump in a magnificent International Championship quarter-final, before making the China Championship semi's and losing out in another decider to Stuart Bingham in another high quality contest. Ricky Walden will be hoping to march on from his English Open quarter-final here where he is the fourteenth seed despite dropping out of the top 16. Walden therefore has work to do in Belfast and at the UK Championships coming up to get into the Masters in January. Other than that quarter-final in Manchester and a narrow last 16 exit at the International to Ding Junhui, Walden has little to look back fondly on this season with a number of earlier exits. After first round exits in the last two weeks of 16-man invitational action Joe Perry has now lost his first match in five of his last six events, with his only recent success being a quarter-final at the International Championship where he was lucky not to lose in the Last 64. July's World Open final must seem like a long time ago for Perry now. Michael Holt has been improving a lot over the course of the last year. Beating O'Sullivan to make the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Masters was a big win but to then do ait again a month later to reach the same stage of the International Championship shows greater consistency from Holt. On top of that he showed great bottle to beat Neil Robertson in the China Championship before losing 6-5 to Stuart Bingham (just as he had done in Daqing). Holt has a couple of potential tricky starters in this event but if he continues to beat top players with the regularity that he has been he could go far. Another harsh first round match sees Michael White taking on Graeme Dott where either player could potentially go on to have a good run in Belfast if they are playing well. Joe Swail may be a major dark horse to have a good week but as one of only two Northern Irish tour players in this event he will be hoping to get a couple of wins in front of his home fans and is more than capable of doing so.
The man I think will come through all of these stars this week is Barry Hawkins. Hawkins was a semi-finalist in the first of the home series events in Manchester, with a couple of Last 16 exits in the events prior to that and he will be hoping to re-create that in Belfast. After failing to qualify for the International Championship, China Championship and the Champion of Champions he has had plenty of time to relax and work on his game ahead of this tournament and the UK Championships which will follow. For someone of Hawkins often underrated qualities the ability to come in fresh and hopefully well tuned with his practice, should he play some expected rust off in the first couple of rounds then it would be easy to see him going from strength to strength in this section. A lot of players in this quarter face tough matches early on, so if Hawkins can come through his the question will be as to how many others do and that could work in his favour.
Quarter Choice: Barry Hawkins
Quarter 4
Last 128 Draw: (Picks in Bold)
Mark Allen Vs Mark Joyce
Michael Georgiou Vs Patrick Wallace
Robin Hull Vs James Cahill
Rhys Clark Vs Lee Walker
Marco Fu Vs Ryan Day
Sam Baird Vs Noppon Saengkham
Andrew Higginson Vs Daniel Wells
Gary Wilson Vs Peter Lines
Ken Doherty Vs Ashley Hugill
Anthony Hamilton Vs Boonyarit Kaettikun
Aditya Mehta Vs Sydney Wilson
Anthony McGill Vs Fang Xiongman
Oliver Lines Vs Eden Sharav
Yan Bingtao Vs Steven Hallworth
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh Vs Robbie Williams
Ding Junhui Vs Yu De Lu
Home favourite Mark Allen is found in the very bottom quarter here but we will come back to him in more detail later. Meanwhile, Ding Junhui will have to pick himself up quickly after a semi-final loss to John Higgins 6-5 in the Champion of Champions despite the Chinese player making four centuries. Ding also impressed by making the International Championship final a couple of weeks ago, and already has a trophy in his cabinet for the 2016/2017 season having won the Shanghai Masters. On UK soil he is not always quite as strong, despite what his recent Coventry performance may suggest. Let's not forget that he lost in the last 32 of the English Open to Jak Jones completely out of nowhere, in what could go down as one of the surprise results of the season. Anthony McGill will be hoping to get back to form after losses in Last 64 of the International Championships in Daqing and the first home nations event in Manchester, before first round defeats in both of the recent invitational events. Marco Fu faces a very harsh first round tie against Ryan Day here in Belfast. Fu has not gotten past the Last 32 of a ranking event this season, which by the standards of a top 16 player is utterly shocking form. His only high point would have been a win over Ding Junhui to reach the quarter-finals of the China Championship though he was thrashed in that last eight tie against Shaun Murphy. Day has looked decent again this season without kicking on into the real latter stages of an event. So far he has had Last 16 exits in the English Open and World Open as well as a Shanghai Masters quarter-final, but by equal measure he has lost in the Last 64 of five events including a 6-2 thrashing against Aditya Mehta in Daqing (which is one of only two wins for Mehta on his return to tour). Watch out for dark horses in young Chinese Yan Bingtao who reached the Last 16 of the first home nations event in Manchester as well as narrowly losing in the Last 32 of the International Championship, on top of runs to the Last 16 of the Riga Masters and Paul Hunter Classic earlier in what has been a brilliant start to the season for the 16 year old. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh could also be a dark horse, though he has lost his first match in each of his three events (Shanghai Masters, English Open and International Championships) since consecutive semi-finals early in the season at the World Open and Paul Hunter Classic.
My final quarter choice is the home favourite Mark Allen. My thoughts on Allen coming into what is a major event for him were always going to be determined by his form coming in. If his form was poor I would have found it much easier to write him off if a lack of confidence combined with the pressure that comes with playing in your home Open getting too much. As he has had semi-finals in both of the China Championship and Champion of Champions in the last two weeks, and coming into those events fresh after a week or so off coming in and taking all of the summer off too he should still be fairly fresh coming here. Therefore he should be really fired up and inspired to do well in front of his home fans, that should also contain a lot of his friends and family. Looking at his draw, he faces his bogey player in round one but nothing will fire him up more than playing Mark Joyce given the fact that he will want for revenge for those defeats and has publicly expressed his dislike of Joyce. Beyond that the only players in his section that are anywhere near the top 32 are Ryan Day and Marco Fu who play each other in round one and neither has been in good form. It is foreseeable that Allen could cruise through the early rounds and then have plenty left in the tank for the latter stages.
Quarter Choice: Mark Allen
Overall Winner Selection: Mark Allen
That is all of my Pre-tournament analysis but don't forget you can see the view from a statistical side in my previous blogs here:
http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/northern-irish-open-stat-attack-and.html
The format for the week is the same as the English Open (Last 128 Monday and Tuesday, Last 64 Wednesday, Last 32 and Last 16 Thursday all best-of-7 frames, quarter-finals on Friday over the best-of-9 frames, semi-finals on Saturday over the best-of-11 frames before Sunday's best-of-17 frames final).
http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/northern-irish-open-stat-attack-and.html
The format for the week is the same as the English Open (Last 128 Monday and Tuesday, Last 64 Wednesday, Last 32 and Last 16 Thursday all best-of-7 frames, quarter-finals on Friday over the best-of-9 frames, semi-finals on Saturday over the best-of-11 frames before Sunday's best-of-17 frames final).
Northern Irish Open: Stat Attack and Tournament Top Ten
There's no rest for the players as we head into another successive week of snooker, which means there is no rest for us statistics compilers. An event in the Northern Irish Open that has been brought into the calendar as part of the home nations series, meaning there are no real relevant tournament statistics to bring, but there are plenty of head to heads in a field of 128 and as usual my own statistics. This week we have the average frame aggregates, average frames per 50+ break, average break when 50 or above, close frames win percentage and most ranking event quarter-finals since the start of the 2014/2015 season began.
On top of that at the back end of this post will be my Tournament Top Ten as there is little time between the Champion of Champions and this weeks Irish Open to do that blog separately so it features again here.
HEAD TO HEAD
- Alan McManus has beaten fellow Scot Stephen Maguire in their last three matches heading into the Last 128 meeting with Maguire here. Two of those victories came in last season's European Tour, while the most recent was in the first round of the 2016 World Championship.
- Nigel Bond and Liang Wenbo will be playing their tenth full match across PTC and ranking events, yet have not met at all in over five years prior to this event.
- In three previous meetings lower ranked players Li Hang and Allan Taylor have always gone to a deciding frame, with Li leading 2-1 overall.
- Shaun Murphy may lead his head to head with Luca Brecel 3-1, but he did lose out in the most recent meeting 4-2 in the 2016 Welsh Open. Previous victories for Murphy came in the 2015 International Championship, the 2015 Paul Hunter Classic and their famous 2012 UK Championship quarter-final, with Murphy going on to reach the final in two of those events, and still losing to the winner in the other.
- Joe Swail has a very good record against Dominic Dale with a 5-1 winning record in full ranking events or PTC's. However, only two of those meetings has been since the 2000 World Championship, with Swail winning both in deciders.
- The famous bogey man head to head comes with home favourite Mark Allen and Mark Joyce. In five meetings, Joyce has won four including two last season in the Australian Open and German Masters winning 5-2 in each match.
- Ahead of their first round meeting here, Lee Walker and Rhys Clark's only previous meeting came in the first home nations event, with Clark winning 4-2 in the English Open in October.
- The unseeded draw has pulled out a cracker with Marco Fu facing Ryan Day in round one. Fu has never lost to Day outside of the Championship League, with four wins despite two of those matches going to deciding frames.
- If Ronnie O'Sullivan and Jimmy White win their first round matches to meet in the Last 64 it would be their first meeting in ranking competition for six years.
- Ricky Walden and Rory McLeod could meet in the Last 64 for only their second meeting since Walden proclaimed that playing McLeod was like a dentists appointment following his World Championship exit to Rory in 2011.
- Michael Holt could come into a Last 64 match with Barry Hawkins should both win in Belfast, but Holt has only one victory to his name against Hawkins who has beaten Holt in each of their last three meetings and each of their first three meetings with Holt's win at the 2011 Shanghai Masters sandwiched between.
PLAYER PERFORMANCE: KEY INDICATORS
Average frame aggregate:
This week's Top 10:
Stephen Maguire = 17.82
David Gilbert = 17.06
Anthony McGill = 15.77
John Higgins = 15.35
Ding Junhui = 15.16
Shaun Murphy = 13.89
Barry Hawkins = 13.32
Jimmy Robertson = 12.74
Matthew Selt = 12.48
Ronnie O'Sullivan = 12.33
The absence of guys like Mark Selby, Neil Robertson, Stuart Bingham and Judd Trump has seen us go further down the list for the top ten here. Stephen Maguire is top of the shop with a very high aggregate, which is not ever so surprising given some of his overwhelming results in the Shanghai Masters in September. David Gilbert had a decent start to the season but has not kicked on. Then you come to three tournament winners in Higgins (who has won the last two events), Indian Open winner McGill and Ding who won the Shanghai Masters and made the International Championship final. There is then a small drop to those outside of that top five where we find Shaun Murphy who seems to have been playing better in the last few weeks without quite getting the results. Barry Hawkins was a semi-finalist in the first home nations event, while Jimmy Robertson and Matt Selt are surprises to me in the top ten before we come to Ronnie O'Sullivan who made the Champion of Champions final last week.
This week's Bottom 10:
Darryl Hill = -44.35
Sydney Wilson = -35.02
Kurt Dunham = -32.12
Jason Weston = -30.92
Alex Borg = -30.58
Christopher Keogan = -26.6
Paul Davison = -23.97
Michael Wild = -22.71
Josh Boileau = -21.5
Chen Zhe = -20.68
Darryl Hill is resoundingly bottom of this list which is not surprising when you see that he has not won a match all season and only won five frames across the matches he has played. Sydney Wilson has also lost every match he has played but not as badly as Hill, while Kurt Dunham has one win to his name over Alex Borg in the Paul Hunter Classic. Jason Weston is also in the 'Yet to win a match in 2016/2017' club, along with Alex Borg so it is no surprise to see these guys occupying the bottom five. Then there is a jump up to Chris Keogan (who plays Dunham in round one this week), Paul Davison after he gave Mark Selby a good go in round one of the International Championship, and then Michael Wild who won a couple of matches to qualify for the European Masters in Romania. Josh Boileau is higher for someone with only one win, but he was a non-entry at the International Championship meaning his aggregate was neither helped or harmed over the longer format.
Average frames per 50+ break:
This week's Top 10:
Ronnie O'Sullivan - 2.18
Mark Allen - 2.37
Ding Junhui - 2.51
Anthony McGill - 2.59
Shaun Murphy - 2.61
John Higgins - 2.62
David Gilbert - 2.72
Liang Wenbo - 2.73
Jack Lisowski - 2.74
Tom Ford - 2.75
Ronnie O'Sullivan is top of the average frames per 50+ break after his high scoring performances through last weeks Champion of Champions. Mark Allen has also been in very good scoring form, particularly in the last couple of weeks where he has reached a couple of semi-finals. Then we have a little drop to Ding Junhui and Anthony McGill who's good early season form and tournament wins will have surely helped them here. Shaun Murphy is always a frequent scorer, and has lost a couple of quality high scoring games in deciders just lately. John Higgins has really climbed up this list, having been at 2.9 prior to his two tournament victories. Finishing off the top ten are players that are all heavy scoring players, with English Open winner Liang Wenbo and then three guys that are frequent scorers even if they are not reaching the latter stages of events with Gilbert, Lisowski and Ford.
This week's Bottom 10*:
Kurt Dunham - 25
Jason Weston - 16.33
Alex Borg - 15.67
Sydney Wilson - 15
Christopher Keogan - 11.4
Boonyarit Kaettikun - 11.25
Elliot Slessor - 10.14
David John - 9.4
Ross Muir - 9.38
James Cahill - 8.7
Darryl Hill would be bottom of this list but as I mention below he does not actually have an average having not made a 50+ break this season. Kurt Dunham only has a couple to his name, while the next three above Dunham have not won a single match so you would not expect them to have scored frequently as a result of that. Boonyarit Kaettikun may not have won a match yet but he has lost a lot of close games and he has clearly scored better than other guys yet to win a match given the gap between them. Slessor and John have been a little hit and miss with their results, while the fact a player as good as James Cahill can be is in the bottom ten for scoring comes as a surprise.
*Darryl Hill has not made a 50+ break this season meaning he does not have an average.
Average contribution when 50 or above*:
This week's Top 10:
Li Hang - 82.74
Marco Fu - 82.32
Stephen Maguire - 81.47
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh - 81.06
David Gilbert - 80.78
Robin Hull - 80.57
Liang Wenbo - 80.41
Martin O'Donnell - 80.36
John Astley - 79.71
Ding Junhui - 79.24
When it comes to this statistic I have put a filter in place to only count those that have made enough breaks to be included, or else there would have been players at the top of this list who had only made two breaks of 50 or above this season.
Li Hang does top the list having made plenty of breaks and throwing in some very heavy centuries at times too. Marco Fu has been near the top of this list all season long, along with Stephen Maguire who has had a maximum 147 in his brilliant showing at the Shanghai Masters. You would have to say the trait of guys like Un-Nooh, Gilbert, Robin Hull and Liang Wenbo is that they make plenty of high breaks and a fair few centuries so them taking places four through to seven on this list is standard. Then come two players outside of the top 64 in Martin O'Donnell, and John Astley with Astley impressing in some of his results since returning to the tour. Meanwhile, another very heavy century maker completes the list with Ding Junhui, though it is certainly Li Hang that has the bragging rights here amongst the Chinese players.
This week's Bottom 10:
Dechawat Poomjaeng - 57.25
Oliver Lines - 58.13
Lee Walker - 59.36
James Cahill - 59.9
Gareth Allen - 60.71
Zhang Yong - 61.82
Paul Davison - 62.18
Allan Taylor - 63.67
Nigel Bond - 64.46
Rhys Clark - 64.82
As for those that are not heavy scorers, the man at the very bottom (once the filter has been put through at least) is Dechawat Poomjaeng who has gone on a long run of defeats recently. Oliver Lines has not scored as heavily as he can, and neither has James Cahill who we have already seen is struggling on the scoring front with his efforts on the average frames per 50+. As for the rest the common theme is simply that they are all lower down on the rankings and probably not winning enough matches due to a lack of heavy scoring in matches. However, breaks of around an average of the 64 mark have done for guys like Rhys Clark (making consecutive Last 16's in the European Masters and English Open), Allan Taylor (winning all of his qualifying matches at the seasons start) and Nigel Bond (who rolled back the years with his extraordinary run in India).
*Filtered to only those who have made at least 10 breaks of 50 or over.
Close Frames Win Percentage:
This week's Top 10:
Ian Preece - 85.71%
Yan Bingtao - 83.33%
Michael Georgiou - 82.35%
Mark Joyce - 78.57%
Alfie Burden - 76.47%
Stephen Maguire - 73.68%
Kyren Wilson - 73.33%
Li Hang - 69.23%
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh - 69.23%
Kurt Maflin - 68.18%
Ian Preece's high percentage at the top of the close frames percentage list comes from a smaller sample size, than the very impressive percentages of above 80 from Yan Bingtao who has been brilliant in his first half season on tour, and Michael Georgiou who has won a lot of these close frames (20 points or less difference in frame points). Mark Joyce will have to win any close frames if he is to beat home favourite Mark Allen in round one this week, while any percentages of above 70 are very impressive from the likes of Alfie Burden, Stephen Maguire who from his scoring stats we saw earlier is really showing off his all round game, and Kyren Wilson who has showed great tactical play since his breakthrough a year ago. The final three in the top ten of Li Hang (who topped the break weight stats), Un-Nooh and Maflin are all heavy scorers so they could be in the list thanks to good clearances from a long way behind in frames as much as grinding out close frames with exemplary tactical play.
This week's Bottom 10:
Darryl Hill - 0%
Robbie Williams - 15%
Chen Zhe - 16.67%
Thor Chuan Leong - 20%
Jimmy White - 20%
Yu De Lu - 22.22%
Fang Xiongman - 22.22%
Craig Steadman - 22.22%
Jamie Cope - 22.22%
Mark Davis - 23.08%
Poor old Darryl Hill is at the bottom of another list here, having lost all of the close frames in which he has been involved. Robbie Williams shaky form could be explained by the incredibly high number of close frames he has lost, while guys like Chen Zhe have also not won a lot of matches. Thor has lost a couple of close games and perhaps it has been these close tactical frames that are costing him. Further up the list, Yu De Lu, Fang Xiongman, Craig Steadman and Jamie Cope are all on the same percentage with the common theme that they are all lower down the ranking list and not winning high numbers of matches. Mark Davis is the small anomaly here as he has reached two quarter-finals this season so far, despite winning less than a quarter of close frames.
Quarter Finals or better since 2014/2015:
This week's Top 10:
John Higgins - 11
Ding Junhui - 10
Stephen Maguire - 9
Shaun Murphy - 9
Joe Perry - 9
Mark Williams - 8
Mark Davis - 8
Marco Fu - 7
Ronnie O'Sullivan - 7
Ricky Walden - 7
This list only counts quarter-finals in full ranking events, else I'm sure John Higgins would be further in front on this weeks list. Stephen Maguire has made a lot of quarter-finals for someone outside of the top 16 now, while Murphy and Perry have also made a high number without always kicking on and winning as many events as guys like Higgins. Mark Davis may have made eight quarter-finals but on the whole he does not seem to get past the last eight and into the semi's or final as often as he would want from those eight attempts. Ronnie O'Sullivan does not always enter a lot of ranking events so his position is not actually that bad, while for guys like Walden and Fu they may actually expect to get to these stages and beyond a lot more. However, they are both quite inconsistent and this leads to far too many early exits for guys that we all know can do better.
TOURNAMENT TOP TEN
Once again with the short turnaround this week the Tournament Top Ten feature has been scaled back and included along with my Stat Attack, and this week with the non-entries from Mark Selby, Neil Robertson and Stuart Bingham as well as Judd Trump's withdrawal we will see some different names in the top ten. This week the defining features were the events that have almost been back to back in the last five weeks (From the European Masters to the Champion of Champions) with emphasis on the first home nations in Manchester and previous home nations style events so the 2015 and 2016 Welsh Open's were also included along with all of the five statistics categories that have been shown above.
10- Marco Fu - As the graph will show you it has not necessarily taken high averages and high scores from past events to make it into the top ten this week, which is lucky for Marco Fu in tenth. Fu's best this season came at the China Championships with a good win against Ding to make the quarter-finals, prior to his withdrawal from the Champion of Champions last week so hopefully the reason for that was not too serious and he is ready to go this week. Statistically he has always been close to the top of the average break when 50 or above which just sees him sneak into the top ten.
9- Joe Perry - Perry is not that far ahead of Fu in ninth spot. He has been hit and miss this season but his recent best came at the International Championship making the quarter-finals before losing to the eventual winner Selby. Perry also made the semi-finals of the event that gave the template for all of these home nations events, the 2016 Welsh Open. Along with that he is in this weeks top five for quarter-finals made in ranking events since the start of the 2014/2015 season.
8- Shaun Murphy - The inclusion to the generator this week of the last two years Welsh Open will not help Murphy who always seems to struggle in that event. He also lost early in the English Open in a Last 64 decider to the eventual winner. It is hard to read much into another first round exit at the Champion of Champions as that is a bogey event for Murphy, but he has made the quarter-finals of the International and the semi's of the China Championship in recent weeks to separate himself further from Perry. Statistically he is in the top five with Perry for quarter-finals made in ranking events, and he also sneaks into the top five of this weeks list for frames per 50+ break.
7- Ben Woollaston - Woollaston is a name you might be surprised to see in the top ten, but he did make the Last 16 of the first home nations event in Manchester, and his record in the last two years of the Welsh Open saw his first ranking final in 2015, followed with a quarter-final this year. Not being in the Champion of Champions and China Championship means that on the whole he has a better average which is the only reason he sneaks above Murphy here.
6- Stephen Maguire - Stephen Maguire is in the exact same boat as Woollaston, though most of his points come from the statistics. He is with Perry and Murphy in joint third on the quarter-finals in ranking events list, as well as topping the list for average aggregate and third this week for average break when 50 or above. In terms of performances his best that was included in the generator was a Welsh Open quarter-final in 2015. His Shanghai Masters semi-final was not included, and had that event counted he may have crept further up this list.
5- Liang Wenbo - Liang Wenbo is the man chasing the million pound dream as the winner of the first event in the home nations series. Incidentally two of the other top 16 seeds in his quarter in Judd Trump and Ali Carter have both withdrawn which may improve his chances if he can win his early games. Aside from that win are his last 16's in Daqing and Romania, but he does not feature statistically this week and his best in the last two years of the Welsh Open is the Last 32 or he would more than likely have been in the top 3 or 4.
4- Mark Allen - Home favourite Mark Allen takes the fourth position in this weeks pre-tournament rankings after consecutive semi-finals at the China Championship and Champion of Champions. Looking back to the home nations style he was also a semi-finalist at the Welsh Open in February of this year and will be looking to kick on, on home ground. Statistically, a second place finish on this weeks average frames per 50+ break list is the decisive factor in him narrowly climbing ahead of Liang Wenbo.
3- Ding Junhui - Ding Junhui is one of the real form men coming into this week, with a semi-final at the Champion of Champions (where he made four tons and lost) and a recent final at the International Championships. He was also a quarter-finalist in the Welsh Open of 2016 but he shines on equal level in the stats lists. The Chinese number one is at number two this week for quarter-finals or better in ranking events, third for average frames per 50+ break and fifth when it comes to average aggregate. He is a long way behind Allen but also a fair way off of the top two, so his win at the Shanghai Masters not counting probably makes little difference to his overall ranking.
2- Ronnie O'Sullivan - Ronnie O'Sullivan comes in second on this weeks list as a two time finalist this season. Last week at the Champion of Champions he lost out to Higgins, while in the European Masters it was Trump who did the damage and denied him victory. He could not be denied earlier in the season at the Welsh Open though as he cruised to victory in Cardiff. A Last 16 at the International Championship also gives him a small boost. Statistically he is top of the list for average frames per 50+ breaks which was helped by a scoring barrage last week in Coventry.
1- John Higgins - Top of the pile it is no surprise to see back to back winner John Higgins. Winning the China Championship and Champion of Champions in successive weeks was never going to see Higgins finish anywhere else. If that was not enough he had three consecutive quarter-finals from the European Masters, English Open and International Championship. Due to it's similarity the Welsh Open of 2015 where Higgins was also the champion is counted which puts him streets ahead at the top of the list without the statistics. He is top of this weeks list for quarter-finals reached in ranking events in the last two and a half seasons, and that is joined by a fourth place standing in the average frame aggregates.
Those are all of the indicators we have going into this week on who should perform well and who could end up taking the title on Sunday night. Look out though because that is only half of my pre-tournament build-up complete, with the full Northern Ireland Open preview to come as well.
On top of that at the back end of this post will be my Tournament Top Ten as there is little time between the Champion of Champions and this weeks Irish Open to do that blog separately so it features again here.
HEAD TO HEAD
- Alan McManus has beaten fellow Scot Stephen Maguire in their last three matches heading into the Last 128 meeting with Maguire here. Two of those victories came in last season's European Tour, while the most recent was in the first round of the 2016 World Championship.
- Nigel Bond and Liang Wenbo will be playing their tenth full match across PTC and ranking events, yet have not met at all in over five years prior to this event.
- In three previous meetings lower ranked players Li Hang and Allan Taylor have always gone to a deciding frame, with Li leading 2-1 overall.
- Shaun Murphy may lead his head to head with Luca Brecel 3-1, but he did lose out in the most recent meeting 4-2 in the 2016 Welsh Open. Previous victories for Murphy came in the 2015 International Championship, the 2015 Paul Hunter Classic and their famous 2012 UK Championship quarter-final, with Murphy going on to reach the final in two of those events, and still losing to the winner in the other.
- Joe Swail has a very good record against Dominic Dale with a 5-1 winning record in full ranking events or PTC's. However, only two of those meetings has been since the 2000 World Championship, with Swail winning both in deciders.
- The famous bogey man head to head comes with home favourite Mark Allen and Mark Joyce. In five meetings, Joyce has won four including two last season in the Australian Open and German Masters winning 5-2 in each match.
- Ahead of their first round meeting here, Lee Walker and Rhys Clark's only previous meeting came in the first home nations event, with Clark winning 4-2 in the English Open in October.
- The unseeded draw has pulled out a cracker with Marco Fu facing Ryan Day in round one. Fu has never lost to Day outside of the Championship League, with four wins despite two of those matches going to deciding frames.
- If Ronnie O'Sullivan and Jimmy White win their first round matches to meet in the Last 64 it would be their first meeting in ranking competition for six years.
- Ricky Walden and Rory McLeod could meet in the Last 64 for only their second meeting since Walden proclaimed that playing McLeod was like a dentists appointment following his World Championship exit to Rory in 2011.
- Michael Holt could come into a Last 64 match with Barry Hawkins should both win in Belfast, but Holt has only one victory to his name against Hawkins who has beaten Holt in each of their last three meetings and each of their first three meetings with Holt's win at the 2011 Shanghai Masters sandwiched between.
PLAYER PERFORMANCE: KEY INDICATORS
Average frame aggregate:
This week's Top 10:
Stephen Maguire = 17.82
David Gilbert = 17.06
Anthony McGill = 15.77
John Higgins = 15.35
Ding Junhui = 15.16
Shaun Murphy = 13.89
Barry Hawkins = 13.32
Jimmy Robertson = 12.74
Matthew Selt = 12.48
Ronnie O'Sullivan = 12.33
The absence of guys like Mark Selby, Neil Robertson, Stuart Bingham and Judd Trump has seen us go further down the list for the top ten here. Stephen Maguire is top of the shop with a very high aggregate, which is not ever so surprising given some of his overwhelming results in the Shanghai Masters in September. David Gilbert had a decent start to the season but has not kicked on. Then you come to three tournament winners in Higgins (who has won the last two events), Indian Open winner McGill and Ding who won the Shanghai Masters and made the International Championship final. There is then a small drop to those outside of that top five where we find Shaun Murphy who seems to have been playing better in the last few weeks without quite getting the results. Barry Hawkins was a semi-finalist in the first home nations event, while Jimmy Robertson and Matt Selt are surprises to me in the top ten before we come to Ronnie O'Sullivan who made the Champion of Champions final last week.
This week's Bottom 10:
Darryl Hill = -44.35
Sydney Wilson = -35.02
Kurt Dunham = -32.12
Jason Weston = -30.92
Alex Borg = -30.58
Christopher Keogan = -26.6
Paul Davison = -23.97
Michael Wild = -22.71
Josh Boileau = -21.5
Chen Zhe = -20.68
Darryl Hill is resoundingly bottom of this list which is not surprising when you see that he has not won a match all season and only won five frames across the matches he has played. Sydney Wilson has also lost every match he has played but not as badly as Hill, while Kurt Dunham has one win to his name over Alex Borg in the Paul Hunter Classic. Jason Weston is also in the 'Yet to win a match in 2016/2017' club, along with Alex Borg so it is no surprise to see these guys occupying the bottom five. Then there is a jump up to Chris Keogan (who plays Dunham in round one this week), Paul Davison after he gave Mark Selby a good go in round one of the International Championship, and then Michael Wild who won a couple of matches to qualify for the European Masters in Romania. Josh Boileau is higher for someone with only one win, but he was a non-entry at the International Championship meaning his aggregate was neither helped or harmed over the longer format.
Average frames per 50+ break:
This week's Top 10:
Ronnie O'Sullivan - 2.18
Mark Allen - 2.37
Ding Junhui - 2.51
Anthony McGill - 2.59
Shaun Murphy - 2.61
John Higgins - 2.62
David Gilbert - 2.72
Liang Wenbo - 2.73
Jack Lisowski - 2.74
Tom Ford - 2.75
Ronnie O'Sullivan is top of the average frames per 50+ break after his high scoring performances through last weeks Champion of Champions. Mark Allen has also been in very good scoring form, particularly in the last couple of weeks where he has reached a couple of semi-finals. Then we have a little drop to Ding Junhui and Anthony McGill who's good early season form and tournament wins will have surely helped them here. Shaun Murphy is always a frequent scorer, and has lost a couple of quality high scoring games in deciders just lately. John Higgins has really climbed up this list, having been at 2.9 prior to his two tournament victories. Finishing off the top ten are players that are all heavy scoring players, with English Open winner Liang Wenbo and then three guys that are frequent scorers even if they are not reaching the latter stages of events with Gilbert, Lisowski and Ford.
This week's Bottom 10*:
Kurt Dunham - 25
Jason Weston - 16.33
Alex Borg - 15.67
Sydney Wilson - 15
Christopher Keogan - 11.4
Boonyarit Kaettikun - 11.25
Elliot Slessor - 10.14
David John - 9.4
Ross Muir - 9.38
James Cahill - 8.7
Darryl Hill would be bottom of this list but as I mention below he does not actually have an average having not made a 50+ break this season. Kurt Dunham only has a couple to his name, while the next three above Dunham have not won a single match so you would not expect them to have scored frequently as a result of that. Boonyarit Kaettikun may not have won a match yet but he has lost a lot of close games and he has clearly scored better than other guys yet to win a match given the gap between them. Slessor and John have been a little hit and miss with their results, while the fact a player as good as James Cahill can be is in the bottom ten for scoring comes as a surprise.
*Darryl Hill has not made a 50+ break this season meaning he does not have an average.
Average contribution when 50 or above*:
This week's Top 10:
Li Hang - 82.74
Marco Fu - 82.32
Stephen Maguire - 81.47
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh - 81.06
David Gilbert - 80.78
Robin Hull - 80.57
Liang Wenbo - 80.41
Martin O'Donnell - 80.36
John Astley - 79.71
Ding Junhui - 79.24
When it comes to this statistic I have put a filter in place to only count those that have made enough breaks to be included, or else there would have been players at the top of this list who had only made two breaks of 50 or above this season.
Li Hang does top the list having made plenty of breaks and throwing in some very heavy centuries at times too. Marco Fu has been near the top of this list all season long, along with Stephen Maguire who has had a maximum 147 in his brilliant showing at the Shanghai Masters. You would have to say the trait of guys like Un-Nooh, Gilbert, Robin Hull and Liang Wenbo is that they make plenty of high breaks and a fair few centuries so them taking places four through to seven on this list is standard. Then come two players outside of the top 64 in Martin O'Donnell, and John Astley with Astley impressing in some of his results since returning to the tour. Meanwhile, another very heavy century maker completes the list with Ding Junhui, though it is certainly Li Hang that has the bragging rights here amongst the Chinese players.
This week's Bottom 10:
Dechawat Poomjaeng - 57.25
Oliver Lines - 58.13
Lee Walker - 59.36
James Cahill - 59.9
Gareth Allen - 60.71
Zhang Yong - 61.82
Paul Davison - 62.18
Allan Taylor - 63.67
Nigel Bond - 64.46
Rhys Clark - 64.82
As for those that are not heavy scorers, the man at the very bottom (once the filter has been put through at least) is Dechawat Poomjaeng who has gone on a long run of defeats recently. Oliver Lines has not scored as heavily as he can, and neither has James Cahill who we have already seen is struggling on the scoring front with his efforts on the average frames per 50+. As for the rest the common theme is simply that they are all lower down on the rankings and probably not winning enough matches due to a lack of heavy scoring in matches. However, breaks of around an average of the 64 mark have done for guys like Rhys Clark (making consecutive Last 16's in the European Masters and English Open), Allan Taylor (winning all of his qualifying matches at the seasons start) and Nigel Bond (who rolled back the years with his extraordinary run in India).
*Filtered to only those who have made at least 10 breaks of 50 or over.
Close Frames Win Percentage:
This week's Top 10:
Ian Preece - 85.71%
Yan Bingtao - 83.33%
Michael Georgiou - 82.35%
Mark Joyce - 78.57%
Alfie Burden - 76.47%
Stephen Maguire - 73.68%
Kyren Wilson - 73.33%
Li Hang - 69.23%
Thepchaiya Un-Nooh - 69.23%
Kurt Maflin - 68.18%
Ian Preece's high percentage at the top of the close frames percentage list comes from a smaller sample size, than the very impressive percentages of above 80 from Yan Bingtao who has been brilliant in his first half season on tour, and Michael Georgiou who has won a lot of these close frames (20 points or less difference in frame points). Mark Joyce will have to win any close frames if he is to beat home favourite Mark Allen in round one this week, while any percentages of above 70 are very impressive from the likes of Alfie Burden, Stephen Maguire who from his scoring stats we saw earlier is really showing off his all round game, and Kyren Wilson who has showed great tactical play since his breakthrough a year ago. The final three in the top ten of Li Hang (who topped the break weight stats), Un-Nooh and Maflin are all heavy scorers so they could be in the list thanks to good clearances from a long way behind in frames as much as grinding out close frames with exemplary tactical play.
This week's Bottom 10:
Darryl Hill - 0%
Robbie Williams - 15%
Chen Zhe - 16.67%
Thor Chuan Leong - 20%
Jimmy White - 20%
Yu De Lu - 22.22%
Fang Xiongman - 22.22%
Craig Steadman - 22.22%
Jamie Cope - 22.22%
Mark Davis - 23.08%
Poor old Darryl Hill is at the bottom of another list here, having lost all of the close frames in which he has been involved. Robbie Williams shaky form could be explained by the incredibly high number of close frames he has lost, while guys like Chen Zhe have also not won a lot of matches. Thor has lost a couple of close games and perhaps it has been these close tactical frames that are costing him. Further up the list, Yu De Lu, Fang Xiongman, Craig Steadman and Jamie Cope are all on the same percentage with the common theme that they are all lower down the ranking list and not winning high numbers of matches. Mark Davis is the small anomaly here as he has reached two quarter-finals this season so far, despite winning less than a quarter of close frames.
Quarter Finals or better since 2014/2015:
This week's Top 10:
John Higgins - 11
Ding Junhui - 10
Stephen Maguire - 9
Shaun Murphy - 9
Joe Perry - 9
Mark Williams - 8
Mark Davis - 8
Marco Fu - 7
Ronnie O'Sullivan - 7
Ricky Walden - 7
This list only counts quarter-finals in full ranking events, else I'm sure John Higgins would be further in front on this weeks list. Stephen Maguire has made a lot of quarter-finals for someone outside of the top 16 now, while Murphy and Perry have also made a high number without always kicking on and winning as many events as guys like Higgins. Mark Davis may have made eight quarter-finals but on the whole he does not seem to get past the last eight and into the semi's or final as often as he would want from those eight attempts. Ronnie O'Sullivan does not always enter a lot of ranking events so his position is not actually that bad, while for guys like Walden and Fu they may actually expect to get to these stages and beyond a lot more. However, they are both quite inconsistent and this leads to far too many early exits for guys that we all know can do better.
TOURNAMENT TOP TEN
Once again with the short turnaround this week the Tournament Top Ten feature has been scaled back and included along with my Stat Attack, and this week with the non-entries from Mark Selby, Neil Robertson and Stuart Bingham as well as Judd Trump's withdrawal we will see some different names in the top ten. This week the defining features were the events that have almost been back to back in the last five weeks (From the European Masters to the Champion of Champions) with emphasis on the first home nations in Manchester and previous home nations style events so the 2015 and 2016 Welsh Open's were also included along with all of the five statistics categories that have been shown above.
10- Marco Fu - As the graph will show you it has not necessarily taken high averages and high scores from past events to make it into the top ten this week, which is lucky for Marco Fu in tenth. Fu's best this season came at the China Championships with a good win against Ding to make the quarter-finals, prior to his withdrawal from the Champion of Champions last week so hopefully the reason for that was not too serious and he is ready to go this week. Statistically he has always been close to the top of the average break when 50 or above which just sees him sneak into the top ten.
9- Joe Perry - Perry is not that far ahead of Fu in ninth spot. He has been hit and miss this season but his recent best came at the International Championship making the quarter-finals before losing to the eventual winner Selby. Perry also made the semi-finals of the event that gave the template for all of these home nations events, the 2016 Welsh Open. Along with that he is in this weeks top five for quarter-finals made in ranking events since the start of the 2014/2015 season.
8- Shaun Murphy - The inclusion to the generator this week of the last two years Welsh Open will not help Murphy who always seems to struggle in that event. He also lost early in the English Open in a Last 64 decider to the eventual winner. It is hard to read much into another first round exit at the Champion of Champions as that is a bogey event for Murphy, but he has made the quarter-finals of the International and the semi's of the China Championship in recent weeks to separate himself further from Perry. Statistically he is in the top five with Perry for quarter-finals made in ranking events, and he also sneaks into the top five of this weeks list for frames per 50+ break.
7- Ben Woollaston - Woollaston is a name you might be surprised to see in the top ten, but he did make the Last 16 of the first home nations event in Manchester, and his record in the last two years of the Welsh Open saw his first ranking final in 2015, followed with a quarter-final this year. Not being in the Champion of Champions and China Championship means that on the whole he has a better average which is the only reason he sneaks above Murphy here.
6- Stephen Maguire - Stephen Maguire is in the exact same boat as Woollaston, though most of his points come from the statistics. He is with Perry and Murphy in joint third on the quarter-finals in ranking events list, as well as topping the list for average aggregate and third this week for average break when 50 or above. In terms of performances his best that was included in the generator was a Welsh Open quarter-final in 2015. His Shanghai Masters semi-final was not included, and had that event counted he may have crept further up this list.
5- Liang Wenbo - Liang Wenbo is the man chasing the million pound dream as the winner of the first event in the home nations series. Incidentally two of the other top 16 seeds in his quarter in Judd Trump and Ali Carter have both withdrawn which may improve his chances if he can win his early games. Aside from that win are his last 16's in Daqing and Romania, but he does not feature statistically this week and his best in the last two years of the Welsh Open is the Last 32 or he would more than likely have been in the top 3 or 4.
4- Mark Allen - Home favourite Mark Allen takes the fourth position in this weeks pre-tournament rankings after consecutive semi-finals at the China Championship and Champion of Champions. Looking back to the home nations style he was also a semi-finalist at the Welsh Open in February of this year and will be looking to kick on, on home ground. Statistically, a second place finish on this weeks average frames per 50+ break list is the decisive factor in him narrowly climbing ahead of Liang Wenbo.
3- Ding Junhui - Ding Junhui is one of the real form men coming into this week, with a semi-final at the Champion of Champions (where he made four tons and lost) and a recent final at the International Championships. He was also a quarter-finalist in the Welsh Open of 2016 but he shines on equal level in the stats lists. The Chinese number one is at number two this week for quarter-finals or better in ranking events, third for average frames per 50+ break and fifth when it comes to average aggregate. He is a long way behind Allen but also a fair way off of the top two, so his win at the Shanghai Masters not counting probably makes little difference to his overall ranking.
2- Ronnie O'Sullivan - Ronnie O'Sullivan comes in second on this weeks list as a two time finalist this season. Last week at the Champion of Champions he lost out to Higgins, while in the European Masters it was Trump who did the damage and denied him victory. He could not be denied earlier in the season at the Welsh Open though as he cruised to victory in Cardiff. A Last 16 at the International Championship also gives him a small boost. Statistically he is top of the list for average frames per 50+ breaks which was helped by a scoring barrage last week in Coventry.
1- John Higgins - Top of the pile it is no surprise to see back to back winner John Higgins. Winning the China Championship and Champion of Champions in successive weeks was never going to see Higgins finish anywhere else. If that was not enough he had three consecutive quarter-finals from the European Masters, English Open and International Championship. Due to it's similarity the Welsh Open of 2015 where Higgins was also the champion is counted which puts him streets ahead at the top of the list without the statistics. He is top of this weeks list for quarter-finals reached in ranking events in the last two and a half seasons, and that is joined by a fourth place standing in the average frame aggregates.
Those are all of the indicators we have going into this week on who should perform well and who could end up taking the title on Sunday night. Look out though because that is only half of my pre-tournament build-up complete, with the full Northern Ireland Open preview to come as well.
Sunday, 6 November 2016
Champion of Champions Preview
Monday sees the start of another 16-man invitational event as the tour moves back to the UK and the Champion of Champions event at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.
It is also the first of the ITV events this season and marks the first of three events in a row on the calendar that will be shown, at least in part, on free to air TV (the Northern Ireland Open will be shown in parts on Quest as the English Open was - prior to the UK Championship on the BBC).
The format is the same as in the three previous seasons that this has been staged with four days of "Group Action" with two best-of-7 Last 16 matches and one best-of-11 quarter-final each day from Monday to Thursday, before the best-of-11 frames semi-finals and the best-of-19 final which will be on Saturday.
The top four seeds for this week were defending champion and UK Champion Neil Robertson, World Champion Mark Selby, Masters Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan and the next highest ranked player that had qualified after the Shanghai Masters which is Shaun Murphy.
All the players this week are guaranteed £7,500 for qualifying for the tournament, one match win takes the money up to £10,000 while losing semi-finalists will receive £25,000, the runner-up £50,000 with the winner taking a nice £100,000 jackpot home with the trophy. Now let's see who the contenders are for that prize this week:
It is also the first of the ITV events this season and marks the first of three events in a row on the calendar that will be shown, at least in part, on free to air TV (the Northern Ireland Open will be shown in parts on Quest as the English Open was - prior to the UK Championship on the BBC).
The format is the same as in the three previous seasons that this has been staged with four days of "Group Action" with two best-of-7 Last 16 matches and one best-of-11 quarter-final each day from Monday to Thursday, before the best-of-11 frames semi-finals and the best-of-19 final which will be on Saturday.
The top four seeds for this week were defending champion and UK Champion Neil Robertson, World Champion Mark Selby, Masters Champion Ronnie O'Sullivan and the next highest ranked player that had qualified after the Shanghai Masters which is Shaun Murphy.
All the players this week are guaranteed £7,500 for qualifying for the tournament, one match win takes the money up to £10,000 while losing semi-finalists will receive £25,000, the runner-up £50,000 with the winner taking a nice £100,000 jackpot home with the trophy. Now let's see who the contenders are for that prize this week:
Quarter/Group 1 (Tuesday 8th November)
Neil Robertson Vs Stuart Bingham - This match up at the very top of the draw is arguably one of the hardest to call for me. With this being played on Tuesday, Stuart Bingham does not have the luxury of too much to get home from Guangzhou where he was playing in the China Championship final on Saturday evening, and may only return to the UK within 24 hours of this match beginning so could come into this match jet lagged and very tired from his exertions from the last few weeks regardless. As well as making the final last week, he was a semi-finalist the week before in Daqing and again at the English Open in Manchester so he has played a lot of snooker in the last three weeks and it is a big ask to keep it going, particularly when he has a first round match as tough as this. Neil Robertson's form has gone for a wander a little bit in the last few weeks since his 6-0 European Masters semi-final loss to Ronnie O'Sullivan. The following week in Manchester he lost 4-3 from a comfortable position at 3-0 against Xiao Guodong with a place in the Last 16 all but secured, and then as I mentioned in my China Championship preview, he seemed to lose his cool in a Last 16 defeat to Joe Perry at the International Championship before a narrow first round loss last week to Michael Holt. Coming back to Coventry as defending champion will give him good memories of a big couple of weeks a year ago when he took both the Champion of Champions title and the big one at the UK Championships in York in consecutive weeks. This year the Northern Irish Open is between the two events, but Robertson has not entered that event and seems as if he is going to concentrate solely on these two huge title defences. With this in mind, the fact you can never keep a quality player like Robertson down for long, and of course Bingham's short turnaround, then I think it will be the Australian who takes this tight match.
Prediction: Bingham's run to end with Robertson winning 4-2
Ding Junhui Vs Ali Carter - Both of these players competed at the recent China Championship which means it is a short turnaround for them having to play again on Tuesday. Ding has had longer off following his first round exit there but he looked in great form prior to that on the way to getting into the International Championship final. Just a couple of tournaments before that he was a winner at the Shanghai Masters and I would expect him to step back up in the next couple of weeks ahead of the UK Championships, after a very disappointing first round loss in the China Championships to Marco Fu. Ali Carter is always dangerous as he showed by beating Judd Trump in the China Championship and he too has been back to winning ways this season by winning the World Open to qualify for this event. In more recent weeks though Carter has had to grind out results and a couple of comebacks early on in the International Championships and English Open stopped him losing earlier than he did, and by no means did he end up going deep into the event on either of those occasions. Carter could well grind Ding down in this one if the Chinese is not on his very top scoring form, but if Ding does become the ton machine that we have seen again this season then he is the favourite.
Prediction: Ding to win a very tight contest 4-3
Quarter Choice: Neil Robertson
Quarter 2/Group 4 (Thursday 10th November)
Judd Trump Vs Anthony McGill - Judd Trump has won multiple events to qualify for the Champion of Champions this season, and is a former runner-up at this event from 2014. His form of late has been sensational with a semi-final at the International Championship, and a final at the English Open to follow his European Masters victory. A small blip at the recent China Championship by losing to Carter in round one was to be expected after such a full on run of tournaments that he featured in the latter stages of. The question is whether he has gotten back up for this event or whether his attentions have already turned to the UK Championships at the end of the month. Anthony McGill by contrast has dropped off in the last couple of weeks after a great run of form to start the season. That run of course included his Indian Open victory that got him into this event, but in the last couple of weeks he has been thrashed in the first round of the China Championship, beaten in the Last 64 of the International Championship and at the same stage of the English Open. At the end of the day it is very hard to maintain such high levels of performance throughout an entire season of snooker, and there will be peaks and troughs.
Prediction: Trump to continue his fantastic form with a 4-1 win.
Shaun Murphy Vs John Higgins - This is going to be a cracking match as last weeks China Championship winner John Higgins takes on narrow losing semi-finalist Shaun Murphy. Murphy has never won a match in this event in three attempts. The first year he lost out to Mark Selby which you take with a pinch of salt. In 2014 he played out a woeful contest with Marco Fu, Fu winning 4-1 only to lose 6-0 to O'Sullivan later that evening. The loss a year ago would be the most disappointing as he took on Yan Bingtao who at that stage was not even playing on the tour full time. Defeat to Higgins would make it four successive first round exits in this tournament and probably make Murphy never want to set foot in Coventry or the Ricoh Arena ever again. That aside, his form did really improve in the two weeks he was away in China from a point in the first round of the International Championship where he could have been swept aside by Robin Hull, to the stage by the end of the China Championships when he was make big breaks like it was nobodies business and came within a frame of the final. That final was won by Higgins who came from the other side of the draw and finished with the truest of class by knocking in three successive centuries from 7-7 to win 10-7 and he played fantastically all week long to take the £200,000 top prize home and qualify for this event. Playing on Thursday it gives Higgins plenty of time to get home and ready for this event, and at the end of the day his opponent is only an extra day ahead of him. Higgins record may not be spectacular in Coventry either but with a trophy under his belt he will just be looking to carry straight on and when Higgins gets on a roll he is very hard to stop.
Prediction: Higgins to pick up from Guangzhou winning 4-1.
Quarter Choice: Judd Trump
Quarter/Group 3 (Monday 7th November)
Ronnie O'Sullivan Vs Robin Hull - Here in this contest we have the lowest ranked player in the competition up against a player who is yet to lose a match in this competition having won the first two editions, before not entering last year. Long time followers of the blog will be aware that I am a big fan of Robin Hull and was so pleased to see him win the Shoot-Out in February, knowing what he has been through over the course of his career and also being aware that to someone lower down the rankings the prize money for winning that and the guaranteed prize money for getting into the Champion of Champions is huge. Hull is such a better player than his world ranking suggests and on his day he can cause the top players a lot of problems. Notable efforts for Hull this season saw him beat Mark Williams in the European Masters Last 128. For O'Sullivan he has not yet hit the heights that we would expect from him so far this season. Last 16 exits in both Chinese tournaments came with defeats to Michael Holt in each of the Shanghai Masters and International Championships. He also lost early on in the English Open, while his highlight so far has been a final appearance at the European Masters. This is a tournament that suits O'Sullivan very well though (being referred to by some as O'Sullivan's event when it was first started up) and if he were to win his matches on Monday as he should do so comfortably, he could then have three days off and come back fresh for the semi-finals on Friday and that could be a huge advantage.
Prediction: O'Sullivan to prove too strong a 4-1 winner
Martin Gould Vs Mark Davis - Martin Gould qualified for the Champion of Champions way back in February as the winner of the German Masters, but at the start of this season he has not got anywhere near those heights. His best showing has been a Last 16 way back at the Indian Open, but he lost in the Last 128 of the European Masters, Last 64 of the International and was beaten by Trump in the Last 32 of the English Open. A low point for Gould would certainly have been his 5-0 loss to Yuan Sijun in the wildcard round of the Shanghai Masters, having already lost to Yuan 5-0 in last season's China Open. Mark Davis has looked a lot more solid this season as is generally his nature. Quarter-finals at the Paul Hunter Classic and more recently in the European Masters before losing to O'Sullivan are an improvement on what was not the best of seasons a year ago. On the day this could go either way, but for me I feel that Gould will have to be on good scoring form to win. Whoever comes through would also have to be very close to their very best to beat Ronnie later on in the evening over the best-of-11 frames.
Prediction: Another match to go the distance with Davis winning 4-3
Quarter Choice: Ronnie O'Sullivan
Quarter 4/Group 2 (Wednesday 9th November)
Mark Allen Vs Joe Perry - Joe Perry is the second player in this weeks field that got in without actually having to win an event to do so. His appearance in the final of the World Open was enough to get him high enough on the money list from this season so far, that when Marco Fu withdrew his place was guaranteed whatever the result in Guangzhou. It has not been the best of seasons for Perry since that World Open performance, losing his first match at the English Open, Shanghai Masters and European Masters as well as a first round loss in last weeks China Championship to Shaun Murphy. His only recent highlight was a quarter-final at the International Championship where he also could have lost in the Last 64 (winning from 5-2 down against Andrew Higginson). Mark Allen meanwhile has looked fairly fresh this season after not starting his season until the Paul Hunter Classic, and he qualified for this event nice and early winning the Players Championship in March. Not qualifying for the International in Daqing gave him the week off prior to the China Championship and it seemed to help him. He made five century breaks in his wins over Ricky Walden and Mark Selby (which was a particularly great win given his recent form) before coming up against the better player in John Higgins. After travelling back from China the Northern Irishman should have a couple of days off before having to play in Coventry where he made it all the way to the final a year ago, despite losing in the first round of this event the two years before that. Again I can see this being close, but Allen may have the edge if he can pick up his great Guangzhou form.
Prediction: Allen to continue his heavy scoring with a 4-2 win.
Mark Selby Vs Liang Wenbo - Mark Selby has very much been the form man of the 2016/2017 season so far. He has won so many events in the qualifying period for this years Champion of Champions it is difficult to name them all. The World Championship win gets him a place as one of the four seeded players, and he adds to that another major victory at the International Championship along with title winning displays in August's Paul Hunter Classic and February's Gdynia Open. One of the few events left that Selby has not won his is this one, which should spur him on this week. His opponent Liang Wenbo will face him for the second time in three events after they met in the Last 16 of the International Championship with Selby coming out a narrow winner there. Liang has been in great form though, winning the English Open which saw him qualify for this weeks event. Over the course of the last year he has improved a lot as a player and the win in Manchester hallmarked that, but he can still be very hit and miss as he showed in the 6-2 thrashing he took last week against Stuart Bingham at the China Championship.
Prediction: Selby to march on a 4-2 winner
Quarter Choice: Mark Allen
Overall Winner Selection: Ronnie O'Sullivan
That is it for my build-up then ahead of this weeks Champion of Champions event in Coventry, next up on the calendar is the second event in the home nations series as the Northern Irish Open begins next Monday in Belfast.
Don't forget you can still read my statistical analysis ahead of the Champion of Champions here:
'Stat Attack': http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-stat-attack.html
'Tournament Top Ten': http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-tournament-top-ten.html
'Stat Attack': http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-stat-attack.html
'Tournament Top Ten': http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-tournament-top-ten.html
Saturday, 5 November 2016
Champion of Champions: Tournament Top Ten
With a little bit of extra time on my side this week the blog schedule is back to normal and the Tournament Top Ten blog is back out on it's own rather than being a joint blog with the 'Stat Attack'. As there have been three previous Champion of Champions events, building the pre-tournament ranking list is made easier. Taken into account on the list this week are all three previous stagings in Coventry along with the recent China Championship, International Championship, English Open and European Masters as these feel most relevant in terms of players most recent form. Along with that will be the up to date stats on average frame aggregates, average frames per 50+ break, average contribution when 50 or above and the close frames win percentages which are all specific to this season only.
With the Champion of Champions being a 16 man event, like last weeks China Championship I will rank all 16 of the players in this list featuring a lovely looking graph to show what the gaps are between certain players on the list.
16 - Martin Gould - Martin Gould has had a series of early tournament exits in recent tournaments, and only appeared in the Champion of Champions once, just failing to get past the first round. He also failed to get into the top five in any of the four statistics that helped to build the list meaning Gould finishes rock bottom on the list.
15 - Robin Hull - As the lowest ranked player in the tournament you would not expect Hull to be reaching the latter stages of many tournaments which he has not done. Hull is also a Champion of Champions debutant so he has no previous finishes to go on there, but a fourth placed finish in the field this week on the average break when 50 or above list does see him finish above Gould.
14 - Mark Davis - Mark Davis means that the bottom three players are all from the same group (with O'Sullivan). Davis did make the European Masters quarter-finals which sees him on the list above his first round opponent Gould and narrowly ahead of Hull but with nothing to report from his previous Champion of Champions appearance or any statistical high points he is not able to climb any further.
13 - Ali Carter - As his win at the World Open earlier in the season does not count to this weeks list and he has dropped off marginally in his recent results, Carter finishes quite low down on the list. He did make the International Championship Last 16 and beat Judd Trump in the first round of the China Championship last week. However, in three previous showings at the Champion of Champions he has only won one single game which also prevents a higher finish. Statistically his only high point comes with a fifth placed finish out of this weeks field on the close frames win percentage list.
12 - Shaun Murphy - Next up is the man who in three appearances at the Champion of Champions has never won a single match, which seriously impedes his chances of a high finish on this weeks list. If it were not for that his form has actually improved in the last couple of weeks in China, following an International Championship quarter-final up with a semi-final in last weeks China Championship. Statistically, he came close on a couple of lists but failed to break into the top five on any of the four categories which fails to give him an extra little nudge up the table.
11 - Anthony McGill - Narrowly missing out on the top ten this week is Anthony McGill. McGill is a debutant in Coventry so there is nothing to report there. In recent weeks results have not gone the way of the young Scotsman with his only showing of note in this busy run being a run to the last eight of the European Masters. Finally, on a statistical note he does still sneak into the top five on the average frame aggregates despite being in decline on that list. A fourth place finish with an aggregate of 17.63 edging him just ahead of Shaun Murphy who is also in McGill's group on Thursday.
10 - Joe Perry - Marginally scraping into the top ten is Joe Perry who has certainly not had things going his way in recent events. Perry's best display came in the International Championship making the quarter-finals but besides that, he has lost his first match in every other recent event that counted. He does have one good previous finish to shout about, making the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions in 2015 on his Coventry debut. Although, there is nothing to add in terms of a statistical high.
9 - Mark Allen - As the graph demonstrates really well, there is then a big jump on the list to where we find last years Champion of Champions runner-up Mark Allen. Allen also reached the semi-finals of last weeks China Championship which also gives him a big boost on the list as by far his best recent finish. Unfortunately for the Northern Irishman's sake, he had not won a match in Coventry prior to his run to the final in 2015, or else he would be even higher on the list. Another bonus comes with a third place finish on the list of average frames per 50+ where he averages 2.35 frames per 50 which is a very good ratio.
8 - Ding Junhui - If the graph shows the gap between Allen and Perry it will show another equally sized jump up to where we find Ding Junhui. Ding did not qualify for last years Champion of Champions but on his two showings in years previous he has reached the quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively which is not bad form to take into this week, but not winning form either. His best recent finish came at the International Championship where he reached the final, after early exits at the English Open prior to and at the China Championships straight after. Finally, Ding gets an added assist from the stats where he is just behind Allen in fourth place on the average frames per 50+ break with an average of 2.48.
7 - Stuart Bingham - A reasonable amount ahead of Ding is world number two Stuart Bingham. Bingham was of course the runner-up at last weeks China Championship and he has been flying in recent weeks with semi-finals at the International Championship and the English Open to add to that. In terms of his Champion of Champions record he was a runner-up in the first year it was staged but has not won a match in the event since then, else he could have been propelled well into the top five. There is one numerical bonus for Bingham as he sits third amongst this weeks field for average break when 50 or above which is 79.8 having been boosted by his barrage of centuries in Guangzhou last week.
6 - Mark Selby - I actually expected to see Mark Selby much higher on this list given that he was a winner just a couple of weeks ago at the International Championship, and he was a semi-finalist in the European Masters which also counted to this list. Having said that he is a very long way ahead of Bingham so there was no threat of him finishing any lower than this as the graph above will portray. His previous finishes in the Champion of Champions saw him reach the semi-finals in the first year but he fell a round earlier in 2014 before a first round loss a year ago. Statistically he is boosted though finishing at the very top of the pile on the average frame aggregate list and the close frames win percentage list.
5 - John Higgins - Into the top five is last weeks winner from the China Championships in Guangzhou, John Higgins. Higgins was in good form and seemed to be building towards that big display with consecutive quarter-finals in the English Open, European Masters and International Championship. If his record from the previous stagings of this event did not read: first round loss, first round loss and quarter-finalist then he would surely be in the conversation near the very summit of this list. Statistically he looks good on all fronts with fifth placed looks on the average frame aggregate list and on the average break when 50 or above (which certainly got a boost when he finished off the final with three consecutive centuries to leave him with an average break of 78.94 when above 50). He also finishes in fourth place amongst this weeks field for close frames win percentage with a 60.71% win ratio.
4 - Liang Wenbo - Fourth place has a debutant in Liang Wenbo who qualified by winning the English Open which clearly helped him climb up this list as well. The Chinese player also had Last 16 finishes either side of that at the International Championship and English Open but the numbers are where Liang gains a lot of points. Both scoring and tactically he sits very nicely finishing second on the close frames win percentage list with a win ratio of 67.86%. Meanwhile, he is also second on the average break when 50 or above list, with an average break of 80.41 whenever he makes a contribution of 50+.
3 - Neil Robertson - In the first podium position is the defending champion Neil Robertson. Robertson is not only the defending champion but he was also a semi-finalist in both of the two Champion of Champions events prior to his victory. Recently things have not gone the way of the Australian losing in the first round of the China Championship, the Last 32 of the English Open with his recent best being a semi-final in the European Masters (though he did lose 6-0 there to Ronnie O'Sullivan). The figures give Robertson a big boost though with a third place finish out of this weeks field on the close frame win percentage list, with a 62.07% win ratio. Add to that a second place finish on the average frame aggregates and his position in first for the average frames per 50+ break stat, averaging a break of 50 or above every 2.2 frames.
2 - Judd Trump - In second position is the form man of recent weeks in Judd Trump. We all know his run of Win-Final-Semi's at the European Masters, English Open and International Championship though he did drop off last week with a first round exit in Guangzhou. Trump is of course a former Champion of Champions runner-up from 2014, making the quarter-finals in 2013 and getting knocked out in round one last year by Kyren Wilson. Statistically, Trump is still first for average break when 50 or above with an average of 80.47 following his century barrage at the International Championship. Along with that he comes third on the average frame aggregates list and fifth on the list for average frames per 50+.
1 - Ronnie O'Sullivan - No other man could finish top of this list this week though than the two time Champion of Champions winner Ronnie O'Sullivan. The graph at the top of this post shows just how far he is ahead of everyone else having won this title in 2013 and 2014, and choosing not to play in last years. He also chose not to play the China Championship after three successive tournaments, where he reached the Last 32 at the English Open and the Last 16 of the International Championship with his best being at the European Masters where he lost out in a deciding frame to Judd Trump in the final. If he needed any boosting from the figures he got in the form of a second place finish on the average frames per 50+ break list, averaging a 50 break or above every 2.26 frames.
Things do not always run to form in snooker though so anyone of the 16 could take home the title this week, but as always it will be interesting to see how they ranked on this list coming into the event.
Don't forget you can view my other statistical blog the "Stat Attack" here: http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-stat-attack.html
Also my full tournament preview is still to come ahead of the start on Monday so keep an eye out for that.
With the Champion of Champions being a 16 man event, like last weeks China Championship I will rank all 16 of the players in this list featuring a lovely looking graph to show what the gaps are between certain players on the list.
16 - Martin Gould - Martin Gould has had a series of early tournament exits in recent tournaments, and only appeared in the Champion of Champions once, just failing to get past the first round. He also failed to get into the top five in any of the four statistics that helped to build the list meaning Gould finishes rock bottom on the list.
15 - Robin Hull - As the lowest ranked player in the tournament you would not expect Hull to be reaching the latter stages of many tournaments which he has not done. Hull is also a Champion of Champions debutant so he has no previous finishes to go on there, but a fourth placed finish in the field this week on the average break when 50 or above list does see him finish above Gould.
14 - Mark Davis - Mark Davis means that the bottom three players are all from the same group (with O'Sullivan). Davis did make the European Masters quarter-finals which sees him on the list above his first round opponent Gould and narrowly ahead of Hull but with nothing to report from his previous Champion of Champions appearance or any statistical high points he is not able to climb any further.
13 - Ali Carter - As his win at the World Open earlier in the season does not count to this weeks list and he has dropped off marginally in his recent results, Carter finishes quite low down on the list. He did make the International Championship Last 16 and beat Judd Trump in the first round of the China Championship last week. However, in three previous showings at the Champion of Champions he has only won one single game which also prevents a higher finish. Statistically his only high point comes with a fifth placed finish out of this weeks field on the close frames win percentage list.
12 - Shaun Murphy - Next up is the man who in three appearances at the Champion of Champions has never won a single match, which seriously impedes his chances of a high finish on this weeks list. If it were not for that his form has actually improved in the last couple of weeks in China, following an International Championship quarter-final up with a semi-final in last weeks China Championship. Statistically, he came close on a couple of lists but failed to break into the top five on any of the four categories which fails to give him an extra little nudge up the table.
11 - Anthony McGill - Narrowly missing out on the top ten this week is Anthony McGill. McGill is a debutant in Coventry so there is nothing to report there. In recent weeks results have not gone the way of the young Scotsman with his only showing of note in this busy run being a run to the last eight of the European Masters. Finally, on a statistical note he does still sneak into the top five on the average frame aggregates despite being in decline on that list. A fourth place finish with an aggregate of 17.63 edging him just ahead of Shaun Murphy who is also in McGill's group on Thursday.
10 - Joe Perry - Marginally scraping into the top ten is Joe Perry who has certainly not had things going his way in recent events. Perry's best display came in the International Championship making the quarter-finals but besides that, he has lost his first match in every other recent event that counted. He does have one good previous finish to shout about, making the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions in 2015 on his Coventry debut. Although, there is nothing to add in terms of a statistical high.
9 - Mark Allen - As the graph demonstrates really well, there is then a big jump on the list to where we find last years Champion of Champions runner-up Mark Allen. Allen also reached the semi-finals of last weeks China Championship which also gives him a big boost on the list as by far his best recent finish. Unfortunately for the Northern Irishman's sake, he had not won a match in Coventry prior to his run to the final in 2015, or else he would be even higher on the list. Another bonus comes with a third place finish on the list of average frames per 50+ where he averages 2.35 frames per 50 which is a very good ratio.
8 - Ding Junhui - If the graph shows the gap between Allen and Perry it will show another equally sized jump up to where we find Ding Junhui. Ding did not qualify for last years Champion of Champions but on his two showings in years previous he has reached the quarter-finals and semi-finals respectively which is not bad form to take into this week, but not winning form either. His best recent finish came at the International Championship where he reached the final, after early exits at the English Open prior to and at the China Championships straight after. Finally, Ding gets an added assist from the stats where he is just behind Allen in fourth place on the average frames per 50+ break with an average of 2.48.
7 - Stuart Bingham - A reasonable amount ahead of Ding is world number two Stuart Bingham. Bingham was of course the runner-up at last weeks China Championship and he has been flying in recent weeks with semi-finals at the International Championship and the English Open to add to that. In terms of his Champion of Champions record he was a runner-up in the first year it was staged but has not won a match in the event since then, else he could have been propelled well into the top five. There is one numerical bonus for Bingham as he sits third amongst this weeks field for average break when 50 or above which is 79.8 having been boosted by his barrage of centuries in Guangzhou last week.
6 - Mark Selby - I actually expected to see Mark Selby much higher on this list given that he was a winner just a couple of weeks ago at the International Championship, and he was a semi-finalist in the European Masters which also counted to this list. Having said that he is a very long way ahead of Bingham so there was no threat of him finishing any lower than this as the graph above will portray. His previous finishes in the Champion of Champions saw him reach the semi-finals in the first year but he fell a round earlier in 2014 before a first round loss a year ago. Statistically he is boosted though finishing at the very top of the pile on the average frame aggregate list and the close frames win percentage list.
5 - John Higgins - Into the top five is last weeks winner from the China Championships in Guangzhou, John Higgins. Higgins was in good form and seemed to be building towards that big display with consecutive quarter-finals in the English Open, European Masters and International Championship. If his record from the previous stagings of this event did not read: first round loss, first round loss and quarter-finalist then he would surely be in the conversation near the very summit of this list. Statistically he looks good on all fronts with fifth placed looks on the average frame aggregate list and on the average break when 50 or above (which certainly got a boost when he finished off the final with three consecutive centuries to leave him with an average break of 78.94 when above 50). He also finishes in fourth place amongst this weeks field for close frames win percentage with a 60.71% win ratio.
4 - Liang Wenbo - Fourth place has a debutant in Liang Wenbo who qualified by winning the English Open which clearly helped him climb up this list as well. The Chinese player also had Last 16 finishes either side of that at the International Championship and English Open but the numbers are where Liang gains a lot of points. Both scoring and tactically he sits very nicely finishing second on the close frames win percentage list with a win ratio of 67.86%. Meanwhile, he is also second on the average break when 50 or above list, with an average break of 80.41 whenever he makes a contribution of 50+.
3 - Neil Robertson - In the first podium position is the defending champion Neil Robertson. Robertson is not only the defending champion but he was also a semi-finalist in both of the two Champion of Champions events prior to his victory. Recently things have not gone the way of the Australian losing in the first round of the China Championship, the Last 32 of the English Open with his recent best being a semi-final in the European Masters (though he did lose 6-0 there to Ronnie O'Sullivan). The figures give Robertson a big boost though with a third place finish out of this weeks field on the close frame win percentage list, with a 62.07% win ratio. Add to that a second place finish on the average frame aggregates and his position in first for the average frames per 50+ break stat, averaging a break of 50 or above every 2.2 frames.
2 - Judd Trump - In second position is the form man of recent weeks in Judd Trump. We all know his run of Win-Final-Semi's at the European Masters, English Open and International Championship though he did drop off last week with a first round exit in Guangzhou. Trump is of course a former Champion of Champions runner-up from 2014, making the quarter-finals in 2013 and getting knocked out in round one last year by Kyren Wilson. Statistically, Trump is still first for average break when 50 or above with an average of 80.47 following his century barrage at the International Championship. Along with that he comes third on the average frame aggregates list and fifth on the list for average frames per 50+.
1 - Ronnie O'Sullivan - No other man could finish top of this list this week though than the two time Champion of Champions winner Ronnie O'Sullivan. The graph at the top of this post shows just how far he is ahead of everyone else having won this title in 2013 and 2014, and choosing not to play in last years. He also chose not to play the China Championship after three successive tournaments, where he reached the Last 32 at the English Open and the Last 16 of the International Championship with his best being at the European Masters where he lost out in a deciding frame to Judd Trump in the final. If he needed any boosting from the figures he got in the form of a second place finish on the average frames per 50+ break list, averaging a 50 break or above every 2.26 frames.
Things do not always run to form in snooker though so anyone of the 16 could take home the title this week, but as always it will be interesting to see how they ranked on this list coming into the event.
Don't forget you can view my other statistical blog the "Stat Attack" here: http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/champion-of-champions-stat-attack.html
Also my full tournament preview is still to come ahead of the start on Monday so keep an eye out for that.
Champion of Champions: Stat Attack
Ahead of this weeks Champion of Champions there is the usual statistical offering on the blog featuring interesting notes from the three previous stagings of this event in Coventry, head to heads for all of the first round matches and of course my statistics on average frames per 50+ breaks, average break when 50 or above, close frame win percentage and the average frame aggregate. Once again this week I will be enhancing this analysis with graphs and tables to try and make things much more visual once again.
TOURNAMENT SPECIFIC STATISTICS
- Despite playing in each of the first three Champion of Champions events, Shaun Murphy has never won a match in the tournament losing first round matches to Mark Selby, Marco Fu and Yan Bingtao in his three attempts.
- His first round opponent is John Higgins who has only won one single match over three appearances in the Champion of Champions, getting to the quarter-finals in 2015 but losing in the first round in both 2013 and 2014. Also, two of his three Champion of Champions defeats have been in deciding frames.
- The only two times Ronnie O'Sullivan has entered the event he has won, not entering last year when Neil Robertson took the title, so watch out for O'Sullivan in Coventry.
- Only three players that reached the quarter-finals of last years addition have qualified again for this year. (Defending champion Neil Robertson, runner-up Mark Allen and Joe Perry).
- Stuart Bingham reached the final the first year it was staged (losing to O'Sullivan) but has lost in the first round in both 2014 and 2015 since then.
- Defending champion Neil Robertson has won his 'group' every year in the Champion of Champions reaching at least the semi-finals on all three occasions.
- With a possibility that they could meet in the quarter-finals, Ali Carter lost to Neil Robertson in both of the first two years of Champion of Champions action.
- Three of the 16 players involved this week are Coventry debutants. English Open champion Liang Wenbo, Indian Open winner Anthony McGill and Robin Hull who's victory came in the one frame Snooker Shoot-Out will all be competing in the Champion of Champions for the first time.
- In terms of centuries 2013 produced 21 centuries in Coventry, with 20 following in 2014 before a drop down to just 14 centuries being made in last year's tournament.
- In similar style to Bingham, Mark Allen was runner-up last year having never won a match at the Champion of Champions prior to this (giving hope to players like Shaun Murphy).
- On Mark Davis' only Coventry appearance he lost out 4-0 to Ronnie O'Sullivan in the first who he could face if he were to win his first round match this time.
HEAD TO HEADS
- Ronnie O'Sullivan has beaten Robin Hull on each occasion they have played the most recent being at the 2014 World Championship when he won 10-4.
- Martin Gould and Mark Davis have only met three times outside of the Championship League, with Gould winning the most recent one on the European Tour in 2014, while Davis beat Gould prior to that in the 2012 Australian Open.
- Neil Robertson and Stuart Bingham have not played for nearly three years since their classic UK Championship semi-final which was won 9-8 by Robertson.
- The same is true for Ding Junhui and Ali Carter who have not played since the 2013 European Tour event in Belgium.
- Mark Selby and Liang Wenbo will meet in round one for the second time in the last month after their Last 16 clash at the International Championship where Selby came from 5-4 behind to win 6-5.
- Mark Allen has beaten Joe Perry on the last two occasions that he they have played, at the 2015 Masters and on the 2015 European Tour.
- The last two times John Higgins has played Shaun Murphy (outside of Championship League meetings) Higgins has whitewashed Murphy, most recently 6-0 at the 2015 International Championship and then at the 2013 Bulgarian Open 4-0 with Higgins going on to win both of those tournaments.
- In 6 matches between Judd Trump and Anthony McGill, McGill has only beaten Trump once but that was their most recent meeting in the 2014 Riga Masters quarter-finals.
- If Trump beats McGill and Higgins beats Murphy then the pair will meet for the fourth time this season, after meetings at the English Open, European Masters and Riga Masters that were all won by Trump.
- Meanwhile, if Ronnie O'Sullivan and Martin Gould both win their first round games they will meet for the first time in over five years, having only met twice both of which were in UK PTC events in 2011, and both matches were won by O'Sullivan.
- If Mark Selby comes through his match with Liang Wenbo he will play either Mark Allen who he played in last week's China Championship quarter-final, losing out 6-5, or Joe Perry he played the week before in the International Championship quarter-final coming through a 6-3 winner.
PLAYER PERFORMANCE: KEY INDICATORS
Average Frames per 50+ Break:
Starting with the average frames per 50+ it is still Neil Robertson that leads the way despite going from 2.12 frames per 50 prior to the China Championship to 2.2 after his first round exit to Michael Holt. Ronnie O'Sullivan follows after skipping events in Guangzhou and taking a week off prior to the Champion of Champions. Mark Allen has also worsened from 2.22 last week to 2.35 which will mainly be due to the 9-3 thrashing he suffered in the semi-finals of the China Championship to John Higgins. First round exits have seen a little worsening of the stats for Ding Junhui and Judd Trump but they are still sitting well in the table. Shaun Murphy is this weeks big improver moving up a few spots in the table (though that will also be helped by the changes to the personnel from the China Championship to the Champion of Champions) and going from 2.77 frames per 50+ to 2.56 after his run to the semi-final.
Last weeks runner-up Stuart Bingham has made small improvements from 2.89 to 2.81 frames per 50+ while winner John Higgins fantastic efforts against Mark Allen and Bingham took him from 2.9 to 2.76. Ali Carter is still very low down the table. Mark Davis and Martin Gould who were both not involved in the China Championship and play each other in round one have similarly average 50+ break stats at 3.3 for Gould and 3.34 for Davis. Meanwhile the lowest ranked this week is also the lowest in terms of frames per 50+ breaks as Robin Hull sits on 4.16.
Average Break when 50+:
When it comes to the average contributions that each player makes when they make a break of 50+ the stats are somewhat turned on there heads. The form horses in Trump, Liang Wenbo and Bingham are the table toppers here. Trump has stayed in a similar position to last week, while Liang has made a slight drop but nothing too notable when his average is as high as it is. Stuart Bingham's large amount of centuries over his semi-final and finals at the China Championship have shot him from an average of 78.32 to 79.8. Despite being the lowest ranked player this week by some way, it is no surprise to see a high scorer like Robin Hull at four in the list with an average of 79.47 for every time he makes a 50+ break. Mark Allen's mountain of centuries early on in the China Championship make him the big mover of the last week going from 75.14 to 78.27 as his average contribution when 50 or above. Shaun Murphy has also made his move from 75.25 to 78.13 after his high scoring run to the semi-finals in Guangzhou.
Martin Gould's poor start to the season puts him at the very bottom of the average break weight table with an average of just 70.17. Ding Junhui, Neil Robertson and Ronnie O'Sullivan are all in the opposite end of the table that you would expect to see them in for the enormous century makers that all three of them are, while there is not a whole lot in the averages in the middle of the table.
Close Frames Win Percentage:
Now we move on to the close frames win percentage (with close frames being determined as those with 20 points or less between the end of frame scores). It is no surprise to see Mark Selby still leading the way with a healthy 70% win rate despite taking a slight drop after last week. Liang Wenbo has also dropped around 2.5% on last week, but just as before the China Championship Neil Robertson, John Higgins and Ali Carter complete the top five. Mark Davis has an incredibly low percentage at 23.08% winning less than 1 in 4 close frames which does not bode well for his upcoming events.
Ironically, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Robin Hull who play each other in round one, have exactly the same close frame win percentage. Mark Allen has taken a big drop from 60% to 53.85% while fellow China Championship semi-finalist Shaun Murphy was not involved in one close frame all week long. For players that have been in good form this year Ding Junhui and Judd Trump still have very low close frame win percentages, which shows just how good their scoring has been to counteract that.
Average Frame Aggregate:
After first round exits for all of last weeks top three in Judd Trump, Neil Robertson and Anthony McGill it is now Mark Selby who leads the way for average frame aggregate (average points scored per frame - average points conceded per frame). Mark Allen has dropped off by over 4 points on his average frame aggregate after a 9-3 semi-final loss at the China Championships. John Higgins has made a small gain after winning the title last week, while first round exits for Chinese duo Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo have also seen them drop a little.
Robin Hull's narrow minus aggregate says more about his lower world ranking than anything else to be honest, while Martin Gould has not had the best of starts to the season and is second bottom on the list for that reason. Joe Perry was low on the list for average frame aggregate last week and has now dropped from 8.33 to 6.86 after a first round exit to Shaun Murphy and that is a reflection of all of his first round exits from this season.
That is my first statistical offering this week but still to come will be the tournament top ten blog where these statistics together with past finishes in tournaments will come together to help us see which players should perform best this week.
Following that will also be my full preview where every first round match will be analysed and the tournament prospects of each player discussed before I choose the player I think will win at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.
TOURNAMENT SPECIFIC STATISTICS
- Despite playing in each of the first three Champion of Champions events, Shaun Murphy has never won a match in the tournament losing first round matches to Mark Selby, Marco Fu and Yan Bingtao in his three attempts.
- His first round opponent is John Higgins who has only won one single match over three appearances in the Champion of Champions, getting to the quarter-finals in 2015 but losing in the first round in both 2013 and 2014. Also, two of his three Champion of Champions defeats have been in deciding frames.
- The only two times Ronnie O'Sullivan has entered the event he has won, not entering last year when Neil Robertson took the title, so watch out for O'Sullivan in Coventry.
- Only three players that reached the quarter-finals of last years addition have qualified again for this year. (Defending champion Neil Robertson, runner-up Mark Allen and Joe Perry).
- Stuart Bingham reached the final the first year it was staged (losing to O'Sullivan) but has lost in the first round in both 2014 and 2015 since then.
- Defending champion Neil Robertson has won his 'group' every year in the Champion of Champions reaching at least the semi-finals on all three occasions.
- With a possibility that they could meet in the quarter-finals, Ali Carter lost to Neil Robertson in both of the first two years of Champion of Champions action.
- Three of the 16 players involved this week are Coventry debutants. English Open champion Liang Wenbo, Indian Open winner Anthony McGill and Robin Hull who's victory came in the one frame Snooker Shoot-Out will all be competing in the Champion of Champions for the first time.
- In terms of centuries 2013 produced 21 centuries in Coventry, with 20 following in 2014 before a drop down to just 14 centuries being made in last year's tournament.
- In similar style to Bingham, Mark Allen was runner-up last year having never won a match at the Champion of Champions prior to this (giving hope to players like Shaun Murphy).
- On Mark Davis' only Coventry appearance he lost out 4-0 to Ronnie O'Sullivan in the first who he could face if he were to win his first round match this time.
HEAD TO HEADS
- Ronnie O'Sullivan has beaten Robin Hull on each occasion they have played the most recent being at the 2014 World Championship when he won 10-4.
- Martin Gould and Mark Davis have only met three times outside of the Championship League, with Gould winning the most recent one on the European Tour in 2014, while Davis beat Gould prior to that in the 2012 Australian Open.
- Neil Robertson and Stuart Bingham have not played for nearly three years since their classic UK Championship semi-final which was won 9-8 by Robertson.
- The same is true for Ding Junhui and Ali Carter who have not played since the 2013 European Tour event in Belgium.
- Mark Selby and Liang Wenbo will meet in round one for the second time in the last month after their Last 16 clash at the International Championship where Selby came from 5-4 behind to win 6-5.
- Mark Allen has beaten Joe Perry on the last two occasions that he they have played, at the 2015 Masters and on the 2015 European Tour.
- The last two times John Higgins has played Shaun Murphy (outside of Championship League meetings) Higgins has whitewashed Murphy, most recently 6-0 at the 2015 International Championship and then at the 2013 Bulgarian Open 4-0 with Higgins going on to win both of those tournaments.
- In 6 matches between Judd Trump and Anthony McGill, McGill has only beaten Trump once but that was their most recent meeting in the 2014 Riga Masters quarter-finals.
- If Trump beats McGill and Higgins beats Murphy then the pair will meet for the fourth time this season, after meetings at the English Open, European Masters and Riga Masters that were all won by Trump.
- Meanwhile, if Ronnie O'Sullivan and Martin Gould both win their first round games they will meet for the first time in over five years, having only met twice both of which were in UK PTC events in 2011, and both matches were won by O'Sullivan.
- If Mark Selby comes through his match with Liang Wenbo he will play either Mark Allen who he played in last week's China Championship quarter-final, losing out 6-5, or Joe Perry he played the week before in the International Championship quarter-final coming through a 6-3 winner.
PLAYER PERFORMANCE: KEY INDICATORS
Average Frames per 50+ Break:
Starting with the average frames per 50+ it is still Neil Robertson that leads the way despite going from 2.12 frames per 50 prior to the China Championship to 2.2 after his first round exit to Michael Holt. Ronnie O'Sullivan follows after skipping events in Guangzhou and taking a week off prior to the Champion of Champions. Mark Allen has also worsened from 2.22 last week to 2.35 which will mainly be due to the 9-3 thrashing he suffered in the semi-finals of the China Championship to John Higgins. First round exits have seen a little worsening of the stats for Ding Junhui and Judd Trump but they are still sitting well in the table. Shaun Murphy is this weeks big improver moving up a few spots in the table (though that will also be helped by the changes to the personnel from the China Championship to the Champion of Champions) and going from 2.77 frames per 50+ to 2.56 after his run to the semi-final.
Last weeks runner-up Stuart Bingham has made small improvements from 2.89 to 2.81 frames per 50+ while winner John Higgins fantastic efforts against Mark Allen and Bingham took him from 2.9 to 2.76. Ali Carter is still very low down the table. Mark Davis and Martin Gould who were both not involved in the China Championship and play each other in round one have similarly average 50+ break stats at 3.3 for Gould and 3.34 for Davis. Meanwhile the lowest ranked this week is also the lowest in terms of frames per 50+ breaks as Robin Hull sits on 4.16.
Average Break when 50+:
When it comes to the average contributions that each player makes when they make a break of 50+ the stats are somewhat turned on there heads. The form horses in Trump, Liang Wenbo and Bingham are the table toppers here. Trump has stayed in a similar position to last week, while Liang has made a slight drop but nothing too notable when his average is as high as it is. Stuart Bingham's large amount of centuries over his semi-final and finals at the China Championship have shot him from an average of 78.32 to 79.8. Despite being the lowest ranked player this week by some way, it is no surprise to see a high scorer like Robin Hull at four in the list with an average of 79.47 for every time he makes a 50+ break. Mark Allen's mountain of centuries early on in the China Championship make him the big mover of the last week going from 75.14 to 78.27 as his average contribution when 50 or above. Shaun Murphy has also made his move from 75.25 to 78.13 after his high scoring run to the semi-finals in Guangzhou.
Martin Gould's poor start to the season puts him at the very bottom of the average break weight table with an average of just 70.17. Ding Junhui, Neil Robertson and Ronnie O'Sullivan are all in the opposite end of the table that you would expect to see them in for the enormous century makers that all three of them are, while there is not a whole lot in the averages in the middle of the table.
Close Frames Win Percentage:
Now we move on to the close frames win percentage (with close frames being determined as those with 20 points or less between the end of frame scores). It is no surprise to see Mark Selby still leading the way with a healthy 70% win rate despite taking a slight drop after last week. Liang Wenbo has also dropped around 2.5% on last week, but just as before the China Championship Neil Robertson, John Higgins and Ali Carter complete the top five. Mark Davis has an incredibly low percentage at 23.08% winning less than 1 in 4 close frames which does not bode well for his upcoming events.
Ironically, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Robin Hull who play each other in round one, have exactly the same close frame win percentage. Mark Allen has taken a big drop from 60% to 53.85% while fellow China Championship semi-finalist Shaun Murphy was not involved in one close frame all week long. For players that have been in good form this year Ding Junhui and Judd Trump still have very low close frame win percentages, which shows just how good their scoring has been to counteract that.
Average Frame Aggregate:
After first round exits for all of last weeks top three in Judd Trump, Neil Robertson and Anthony McGill it is now Mark Selby who leads the way for average frame aggregate (average points scored per frame - average points conceded per frame). Mark Allen has dropped off by over 4 points on his average frame aggregate after a 9-3 semi-final loss at the China Championships. John Higgins has made a small gain after winning the title last week, while first round exits for Chinese duo Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo have also seen them drop a little.
Robin Hull's narrow minus aggregate says more about his lower world ranking than anything else to be honest, while Martin Gould has not had the best of starts to the season and is second bottom on the list for that reason. Joe Perry was low on the list for average frame aggregate last week and has now dropped from 8.33 to 6.86 after a first round exit to Shaun Murphy and that is a reflection of all of his first round exits from this season.
That is my first statistical offering this week but still to come will be the tournament top ten blog where these statistics together with past finishes in tournaments will come together to help us see which players should perform best this week.
Following that will also be my full preview where every first round match will be analysed and the tournament prospects of each player discussed before I choose the player I think will win at the Ricoh Arena in Coventry.
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