International Championship 2015
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International Championship 2015
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| Tournament type: | World ranking tournament |
| Venue: | Baihu Media Broadcasting Center, Daqing , China |
| Opening: | October 25, 2015 |
| Endgame: | November 1, 2015
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| Winner: |
 John Higgins
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| Finalist: |
 David Gilbert
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| Highest Break: | 142 ( Zhao Xintong )
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The International Championship 2015 was a snooker tournament as part of the Snooker Main Tour 2015/16 , which was held from October 25th to November 1st at the Baihu Media Broadcasting Center in Daqing . After three years in Chengdu , the tournament was moved to the northeast Chinese metropolis for the first time.
Defending champion was the Englishman Ricky Walden , but he was eliminated in the qualification. The Scot John Higgins won his first title at this tournament and the second title of the season with a 10-5 win over David Gilbert .
Prize money
The prize money remained unchanged compared to the previous year.
| Prize money | |
|---|---|
| winner | £ 125,000 |
| finalist | £ 65,000 |
| Semi-finalist | £ 30,000 |
| Quarter finalist | £ 17,500 |
| Round of 16 | £ 12,000 |
| Last 32 | £ 7,000 |
| Last 64 | 4000 pounds |
| All in all | £ 656,000 |
Wildcard round
The wildcard round games took place on October 25th. The game mode was best of 9 . As in previous years, a Chinese qualifier made it into the main round.
| game | Qualifier (place to sit) | Result | Wildcard player |
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| WC1 |
 Daniel Wells (99)
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6 : 2 |
Fang Xiongman
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| WC2 |
 Ken Doherty (46)
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6 : 2 |
Chen Zifan
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| WC3 |
 Aditya Mehta (51)
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4: 6 |
Wang Yuchen
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| WC4 |
 Noppon Saengkham (113)
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6 : 5 |
Lin Shuai
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Final round
The winners of the remaining four qualifying games and the four wildcard games completed the first round at the start of the main tournament. While there were hardly any surprises in the first round, two top 10 players with Ding Junhui and Barry Hawkins failed early in round two . Their conquerors Ryan Day and Jimmy Robertson respectively lost in the following round of 16. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh made it better , who eliminated another top player early on with Mark Williams and made it to the semi-finals with further victories, including over last year's finalist Mark Allen . His opponent was David Gilbert , who had also defeated two top 20 players with Ryan Day and Marco Fu and had reached the semifinals of a world rankings tournament for the first time. Un-Nooh had won the 6-Red World Championship 2015 a few weeks earlier , but like Gilbert he had never reached the final of a world ranking tournament. The semi-final game was evenly balanced up to 3: 3, then the Englishman pulled away with five frame wins in a row to 8: 3 and was able to finish shortly afterwards to 9: 5.
In the second half of the field, the remaining top ranked Mark Selby did his laps confidently before the top encounter with Australian Neil Robertson in the quarter-finals . Here, too, the world number one prevailed. Only the Scot John Higgins made it better , who gave Shaun Murphy no chance at 6-0 in the round of 16 and then clearly defeated another player in front of him with Joe Perry . In a high-class semi-final, Higgins took a 3-0 lead and kept the pressure on Selby high. So this no longer made the connection. Another 3-0 series at the beginning of the second session meant the preliminary decision and with a 9-4 win, Higgins moved into a final for the second time in the season after the Australian Goldfields Open 2015 .
final
After David Gilbert took the lead twice in his first Main Tour final, John Higgins made a streak of three frame wins. But the Englishman was able to equalize to 4: 4 immediately before Higgins closed the first session with a century break . The evening began unhappily for Gilbert: He misjudged the playability of a ball and Higgins was able to use the start of his second Century. The Scot then extended his lead to three frames. Although Gilbert was able to shorten again, he subsequently missed too many chances and a sure punching John Higgins made the 10: 5 victory perfect with his third series of three frame wins in a row.
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Final: Best of 19 Frames Referee: Jan Verhaas Baihu Media Broadcasting Center, Daqing , China , November 1st, 2015  |
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David Gilbert
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5: 10 |
John Higgins
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Afternoon games: 64 : 53, 33: 71 (56), 100 : 0 (100), 2: 82 (66), 9: 93 (69), 43: 66 , 83 : 9 (77), 75 : 0 (59), 0: 108 (108) evening games: 8: 135 (129), 8: 88 , 98 : 4, 54: 88 (54/88), 18: 72 (52), 22: 93 (56 ) |
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| 100 | Highest break | 129 |
| 1 | Century breaks | 2 |
| 5 | 50+ breaks | 8th |
qualification
The qualifying round was played except for four games from September 30th to October 3rd, 2015 in the Metrodome in the English city of Barnsley . The defending champion Ricky Walden , the world champion Stuart Bingham and the two best Chinese players Ding Junhui and Liang Wenbo (Games 1, 4, 32 and 64) played their qualifying games in Daqing. All games were played in the best-of-11 mode .
The biggest surprise of the qualification was the departure of Judd Trump , who had been in the finals of the Shanghai Masters two weeks earlier . The 6-0 result in particular was unusual. He had an experienced opponent in Michael Wild , but after a ten-year absence from the Main Tour, he only returned this season. Stephen Maguire from Scotland also failed from the top 16 . His opponent Noppon Saengkham was also a tour returnee. Darryl Hill achieved his first victory as a professional against Robert Milkins , number 18 in the world rankings. Of the 10 amateurs who played in Barnsley, only the Chinese Zhao Xintong qualified for Daqing. The 18-year-old defeated Stuart Carrington, a player from the top half of the world rankings, 6-0. In the three previous editions of the International Championship, Zhao had participated with a wildcard and reached the final round each time. There was also a surprise at the four qualifying matches that were first played in China. Tian Pengfei was able to use the home advantage and defeated Ricky Walden , the defending champion and number 11 in the world rankings.
A = amateur player (not on the main tour during the 2015/16 season; qualification via the Q-School-Order-of-Merit)
Century Breaks
Main round
46 Century Breaks were scored in the main round, the two finalists Higgins and Gilbert were the most successful players with six and five breaks of 100 or more points.
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qualification
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swell
- ↑ worldsnooker.com: Indicative Prize Money Rankings Schedule 2015/16 Season. (PDF; 92 kB) World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association , June 12, 2015, accessed on September 16, 2015 .
- ↑ a b International Championship Draw. (PDF; 235 kB) World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association , October 7, 2015, accessed on October 12, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c d International Championship (2015). Snooker.org, accessed September 22, 2015 .
- ↑ a b c 2015 International Championship. CueTracker, accessed October 28, 2015 .
- ↑ International Championship Draw. World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association , September 22, 2015, accessed September 22, 2015 .
- ↑ International Championship 2015 Qualifiers Draw. (PDF; 143 kB) World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association , September 22, 2015, accessed on September 22, 2015 .