2018 China Championships

[JimMalone]

Surprised (but in a pleasant way) that Zhao made the semifinals. Would never have thought this at the beginning if the tournament.

I think we'll have a Higgins - Selby final here and I'm certainly not opposed to it. :smile:

[PatBlock]

I'm glad you enjoyed it, but I was hoping for better. :smile:

I think the humidity has made it difficult, most seem to be struggling to get the pace of the table. And of course, having to strike the cueball harder, generally results in more mistakes. Still enjoyed ut though.

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[Odrl]

I was surprised Zhao managed to win in the end, because he kept throwing frames away with sloppy play. Great finish though, two big breaks in the last two frames. :smile:

It should definitely be a good day tomorrow. I'm hoping it's either Higgins-Selby or Lyu-Zhao in the final, although I suppose any combination would be good at this point. :smile:

[DeanH]

Zhao Xintong - rolling through to the semi finals with a 5-4 win, after being 3-1 down at MSI.

[JimMalone]

The level of play at Selby - Yuan is pretty poor.

[Guitarnolife]

Selby - Sijun looks promising. Hopefully Sijun wont crack under the pressure as he did against Ding. At least he recovered from losing the first frame. Wouldn't be surpriseed to see him win today.

Hawkins though looking out of sorts after the MSI. At least three decent scoring chances and has 25 points.

And lost the frame...

[DeanH]

Hawkins not hanging around, 2-0 in under half-hour

[Odrl]

I didn't find it disappointing at all. Both were not up to their best, but Higgins' matchplay was wonderful once again. Loved how he made the pictures on the table complicated and forced Trump to mistakes.

I'm glad you enjoyed it, but I was hoping for better. :smile:

[JimMalone]

Well, that was underwhelming... Higgins and Trump have played some really fantastic matches in the past, but this one was not one of them. Trump in particular will wonder how he managed to lose the last two frames, wasting chance after chance when Higgins was struggling. He definitely seems to have some kind of mental block when playing Higgins, and stuff like this is what's stopping him winning more tournaments. Disappointing. :wink:

Now for Lyu and O'Donnell... Hopefully I can watch it in full before I have to leave. :smile:

I didn't find it disappointing at all. Both were not up to their best, but Higgins' matchplay was wonderful once again. Loved how he made the pictures on the table complicated and forced Trump to mistakes.

[Odrl]

Well, that was underwhelming... Higgins and Trump have played some really fantastic matches in the past, but this one was not one of them. Trump in particular will wonder how he managed to lose the last two frames, wasting chance after chance when Higgins was struggling. He definitely seems to have some kind of mental block when playing Higgins, and stuff like this is what's stopping him winning more tournaments. Disappointing. :wink:

Now for Lyu and O'Donnell... Hopefully I can watch it in full before I have to leave. :smile:

[JimMalone]

Yeah, John is through! Some very interesting and tense frames.

[JimMalone]

That's mostly Williams' fault. He only reached two quarter-finals before he turned 21, so he was a year or two behind Higgins and O'Sullivan in terms of development. You can find a lot of cases of all three being in the QF of the same event just after 96 though. :smile: For comparison, Paul Hunter and Matthew Stevens were both more successful youngsters than Williams as well, with five and three quarter-finals respectively, as was Alan McManus with four.

Yeah, I thought that maybe it would have happened occasionally that two of them would have been in the quarters and a third player would have been there as well.
Still we shouldn't forget there are not that many tournaments a season and the time span between 17 or 18 and 21 isn't that long.

[DeanH]

Lyu Haotian through to his second semi-final, well done

[jimev]

Tomorrow is too late, I'm afraid... :wink:

I've gone through all the ranking events with matches of at least medium length, and it turns out that players under the age of 21 reaching quarter-finals is a very rare occurrence over the last two decades or so. It only happened twice in all of last season, and once the season before. It becomes even rarer before that, sometimes with several seasons in which it didn't happen at all. Ding Junhui managed to do it five times between 2005 and 2007, while everyone else that has done it since that period only managed it once or twice. It's funny, the 1998/1999 season is the most recent season where we even had three ranking quarter-finalists younger than 21, so the prospect of having three in the same tournament has just not been a realistic one in the last two decades.

Things get a little crazy if you go back another couple of years though, because the 1995/1996 season had 14 ranking quarter-finalists younger than 21. Higgins was the most prolific young player that season with seven, while O'Sullivan had seven himself the season before. Overall, I believe Hendry has the most with 16, O'Sullivan has 15, and John Higgins has 12. Perhaps the most surprising name on this list for me is Martin Clark though. He reached four ranking quarter-finals before he turned 21, but then never got beyond that stage in his entire career, losing all ten of his quarter-final matches. :smile:

Now, to answer the original question... This week is only the third time in history that three players as young as this have reached a major ranking quarter-final in the same event. The last time was in the 1996 Welsh Open (Williams, Dott and Hunter), and the time before that was the 1995 UK Championship (Williams, Higgins and O'Sullivan).

Time well spent, obviously. :wink:

great post

[Odrl]

I would have thought that you only wound find a trio of Under 21's in the same quarterfinals if you'd go back to the times of Higgins, O'Sullivan and Williams, so that's no surprise. But I would have thought it would have happened a little more often than only twice.

That's mostly Williams' fault. He only reached two quarter-finals before he turned 21, so he was a year or two behind Higgins and O'Sullivan in terms of development. You can find a lot of cases of all three being in the QF of the same event just after 96 though. :smile: For comparison, Paul Hunter and Matthew Stevens were both more successful youngsters than Williams as well, with five and three quarter-finals respectively, as was Alan McManus with four.