STAT ATTACK: The Masters

The Masters has arrived and in my excitement I have not forgotten to provide you with the all important numbers and facts ahead of the tournaments start. There are plenty of tournament relevant statistics but I will try and keep this specific to the last five years since the Masters moved to the Alexandra Palace. As well as that we will have head to heads for all of the eight first round matches, as well as my player performance statistics. All of these statistics will be fully up to date (though the Championship League behind closed doors snooker fest will not be included)

TOURNAMENT TRENDS: 

- Ding Junhui has never won a match at the Alexandra Palace, losing in the first round of the Masters in each of the last five years since winning the title in 2011.

- Kyren Wilson is this year's only Masters debutant and he will be the man attempting to make it a sixth year of Alexandra Palace misery for Ding Junhui.

- Until last year neither of Stuart Bingham or Barry Hawkins had gotten past the first round at the Masters. Hawkins went on to reach the final and Bingham the semi-finals as both lost to Ronnie O'Sullivan.

- World Champion Mark Selby has only ever lost twice in the first round of the Masters in nine appearances. On five of the seven occasions he has passed the Last 16 he has gone on to make the final and has never lost in a Masters semi-final.

- At least one of Neil Robertson, Ronnie O'Sullivan and Mark Selby has been in the Masters final in the last five years.

- Neil Robertson has not lost in the first round of the Masters since 2010.

- In 22 appearances at the Masters, Ronnie O'Sullivan has made the final 11 times another extraordinary record.

- John Higgins has also made 22 Masters appearances, but in contrast to Ronnie he has lost in the first round on 11 occasions.

- Mark Selby has an incredible record in Masters deciding frames, having only lost one in 15 deciders. That one was in the first round in 2015 to Shaun Murphy.

- By contrast Mark Williams has only won three out of ten deciders in the Masters, while John Higgins is one out of five for Masters deciding frame wins.


HEAD TO HEAD: 

- Ronnie O'Sullivan beat Liang Wenbo the last time they met at this season's Shanghai Masters, though Liang did get his only victory over Ronnie in the time before that winning 6-4 in the 2013 International Championship

- Neil Robertson has won all of his last five major meetings against Ali Carter and recording some resounding victories amongst them. These include a 13-5 win at the 2015 World Championships, a 6-1 win in the 2015 Masters, a 4-0 win in the 2014 Champion of Champions and a 6-2 win in the the 2014 China Open.

- Judd Trump has won all of his last three matches against Marco Fu, though Fu's last win against Trump was a 6-5 victory at the 2014 Masters so there are good omens for the man from Hong Kong.

- The first round clash between John Higgins and Mark Allen will be their third meeting of the season. Higgins has won the previous two, 6-3 at the UK Championships and 9-3 at the China Championship. Allen did beat Higgins two years ago though in the 2015 Masters.

- Stuart Bingham has only won three out of eleven matches against Joe Perry in major competition. However, he did win their last meeting in the semi-finals of the World Grand Prix in 2016.

- Kyren Wilson won his last meeting against Ding Junhui 5-4 in the 2015 Shanghai Masters in the tournament that Wilson went on to win.

- Three of the last four major meetings between Barry Hawkins and Shaun Murphy have gone to deciding frames with Murphy winning two of those, though Hawkins has only beaten Murphy once in eight major meetings.

- Finally, Mark Williams has won four of his last five games against Mark Selby. Selby may have won the last one in the 2016 Welsh Open. Those victories include a win in the final of the 2013 Rotterdam Open as well as in the earlier stages of the 2013 Indian Open and the 2015 Players Championship Finals.


PLAYER PERFORMANCE: KEY INDICATORS: 

Average frame aggregate: 

Here we look at the average frame aggregate for each of the 16 players in this week's Masters. This stat takes average points conceded per frame from average points scored per frame. Given Mark Selby's stunning form so far this season it is no surprise to see him top. Ronnie O'Sullivan has been in three finals this season as well and scored brilliantly at the UK Championships as he comes just behind in second. Then comes Judd Trump who reached back to back finals in October winning one of them, while Barry Hawkins has been impressive in the home nations series. Marco Fu has sped up the list after his win at the Scottish Open. Ding Junhui and Stuart Bingham have dropped slightly after early exits in their last couple of tournaments. The list is quite bunched in the middle to lower sections with guys like Mark Williams, Kyren Wilson, Ali Carter, Mark Allen and Liang Wenbo who's form has all been a little bit patchy which for some of those players is still a bit harsh. Joe Perry is a way adrift at the bottom after some poor performances and early exits for him in the first half of the season.

Average frames per 50+ break: 

Next up is the average frames per 50 break made for each player. Given what I have already said about O'Sullivan's scoring you would expect him to be at the top for scoring frequency and so it has proved. Neil Robertson has been near the top all season long, while Marco Fu has climbed up following his big break bonanza in the Scottish Open. It is then bunched between frequent scorers Selby, Trump, Ding and Murphy while I would've thought that Higgins would have been at less than 2.5 given the fact that he has two tournament wins and one final this season. Mark Allen has slowed down after scrappier performances in the Scottish Open yielded less big breaks, while Bingham has also slipped down after a couple of recent early exits. Joe Perry once again is at the bottom of the list averaging effectively only 2 50+ breaks in a full best-of 7. However he is not as far behind the next best as he was for frame aggregate with Ali Carter just 0.03 ahead of him as his scoring has been infrequent throughout the entire season, including his World Open win.

Average break when 50 or above: 

We've looked at scoring frequency but now it is time to look at scoring weight with the average break when above 50 list. Again O'Sullivan is the chart topper amongst this weeks field. His array of centuries and big breaks in recent tournaments have helped him to the top here. Marco Fu made 11 centuries in winning the Scottish Open which will be the main reason that his average 50+ contribution is 81.88. Judd Trump was scoring very heavily in October at the European Masters, English Open and International Championship. Mark Allen was a weighty scorer in the UK Championships securing his first professional maximum. Then the table bunches a lot between Stuart Bingham, John Higgins, Shaun Murphy and Liang Wenbo before a small drop to Mark Selby. Joe Perry and Ali Carter are higher on this list, when Perry did score in the World Open at the start of the season for example he was scoring incredibly heavily. It is very much unlike Neil Robertson to not be higher up this list given the amount of centuries that he is famous for making. Barry Hawkins is bottom of the pile which is again a little unusual for him, given that he is 9 points off of the pace set by O'Sullivan and still five points behind mid table Selby.

Close Frames win Percentage: 

Now that the scoring has been dealt with it is time to see how the people winning the close frames differs with this. Liang Wenbo is top of the pile here with a percentage of above 70 which is very impressive at this stage of the season when the average mark for the rest of the top 16 seems to be around 55. Marco Fu has jumped on this list as well following an 80% hit rate of close frames in the Scottish Open showing that he was in tune on all fronts. You would always expect Mark Selby to be within the top two or three on this list and it would surprise me if he was not still here when we look at the top 16 before the World Championships in April. Kyren Wilson has shown similar stickability and ability to tough out the close frames to Selby and his fifth place finish here warrants such praise. Then we reach the bunched period of the table with experienced heads Neil Robertson, Joe Perry, Mark Williams and John Higgins all sat around a healthy 58%. There is quite a drop then to some of the more streaky players like Judd Trump and Ronnie O'Sullivan, while Barry Hawkins can also be quite an aggressive player which may explain this. To see Ali Carter at less than 50% was a big surprise here given what we saw with his scoring stats and the fact that he always comes across to me as a very defensive player. The attacking Mark Allen is tied on 46.88% with Ding Junhui but there is then an almighty 5.86% drop to where we find Shaun Murphy. Murphy averages only 2/5 for close frames with less than 20 points difference between the scores and is over 30% behind Liang at the top. However, as arguably the most aggressive player in the game of snooker today, this percentage presents what happens when the risks don't come off, while an average break of 80.11 when above 50 is evidence of what happens when they do.


Those are the stats ahead of this week then, but don't forget that my Tournament Top Ten blog is already available:
http://cueactionsnookerblog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/the-masters-tournament-top-ten.html

Watch out for my big tournament preview which will be up tomorrow morning.