China Open

Gorst won the title 11-3. He was successful on 6 of his 7 breaks. He won 5 of the 7, all by B&R.

Wu was successful on 5 of 7 breaks. He won just 1 game on his break, with no B&Rs.

Gorst missed a couple more shots than Wu did. They both fouled twice. Gorst won 3 of the 5 games that involved at least one safety.
 
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Well done, Fedor. This is and always has been a very prestigious title and it will be a fitting addition to the Gorst resume. Wishing him continued success.
 
garczar said:
FG had his rock on a string in that final. Played some flawless outs yet some wingnuts on here think he's not MC material. They really need to alter their medication. ;)
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I think this win will put Fedor at #1 on the AZB money list for 2026, with Filler and FSR barely behind. The naysayers entering August argued that Fedor was having a poor year in WNT, and while they were right. they ignored that he'd already won the Derby City 10ball, had a silver at the Las Vegas Open and won the Texas Open 10ball. After a 5th place finish at the US Open 9ball and a win at the China Open 9ball, I don't think we'll be hearing much from them again in 2026.

I couldn't be happier for Fedor, who seems to have rediscovered his best form over the past few weeks. Now let's see if we can get his best at the Mosconi.
 
I am not a fan of alternate break either, it makes the match too predictable if either player gets off to a 3-0 start. It's kind of the worst of both worlds since it makes comebacks harder, while also prolonging lopsided matches.
 
Except for the final, all the other matches I saw of Fedor, he didn’t play well, missed shots and was behind and somehow his opponents stop playing and gave hom the match.
He is a great player but he had a ton of luck in this tournament. Of course that you still need great skill to capitalize on your opponents mistakes
 
Lowell said:
I am not a fan of alternate break either, it makes the match too predictable if either player gets off to a 3-0 start. It's kind of the worst of both worlds since it makes comebacks harder, while also prolonging lopsided matches.
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Same here. Those who defend alternate break tend to cite tennis, but in tennis, the serve is a giant advantage. For example, in today's US Open men's tennis final, there were just three service breaks in thirty games played, so the server won 90% of the games. Alternate serve is a no brainer in pro tennis.

Combining the stats at the last two WNT majors (Arizona Open, US Open 9ball), per AtLarge stats, the breaker won 234 racks out of 394 racks played, or 59% of the racks played. The breaker's advantage in today's nine ball is not so great as to require alternate break to make it fair.

As a fan, I find alternate break less interesting to watch. There is nothing more electrifying than seeing a player keep the table for racks at a time, and the fans have always responded to it when it happens. The match often cited as the greatest ever at the World 9ball was Wu Jiaqing vs Po Cheng Kuo in 2005 --- in the race to 17 final, Wu stepped up to the table trailing 16-12 and ran out the match to win the world 9ball championship. That could not have happened with alternate break. Pool has always been a game of momentum, and alternate break spoils it for me.

With alternate break and no shot clock, I'm having a harder and harder time taking the China Open seriously these days.
 
sjm said:
Same here. Those who defend alternate break tend to cite tennis, but in tennis, the serve is a giant advantage. For example, in today's US Open men's tennis final, there were just three service breaks in thirty games played, so the server won 90% of the games. Alternate serve is a no brainer in pro tennis.

Combining the stats at the last two WNT majors (Arizona Open, US Open 9ball), per AtLarge stats, the breaker won 234 racks out of 394 racks played, or 59% of the racks played. The breaker's advantage in today's nine ball is not so great as to require alternate break to make it fair.

As a fan, I find alternate break less interesting to watch. There is nothing more electrifying than seeing a player keep the table for racks at a time, and the fans have always responded to it when it happens. The match often cited as the greatest ever at the World 9ball was Wu Jiaqing vs Po Cheng Kuo in 2005 --- in the race to 17 final, Wu stepped up to the table trailing 16-12 and ran out the match to win the world 9ball championship. That could not have happened with alternate break. Pool has always been a game of momentum, and alternate break spoils it for me.

With alternate break and no shot clock, I'm having a harder and harder time taking the China Open seriously these days.
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There are TONS of people on here who will say that the break has no advantage and then argue all day that alternate breaks should be the rule.

Go figure.

FWIW, I think that any player who advocates for alternate breaks must be someone who doesn't break very well or spend the time to learn.
 
There was a statistic analysis that showed that there is no difference for the end result, so why do people feel so strong about it?
On one side, I like winner breaks (and the looser rack), sort of prize and punishment for the winner and looser, works great for amateurs, didn't work well for pros when they would argue about the racking and it took forever to rack and get the game moving... now that was a pain to watch... then came referee racking and then the Sardo rack etc etc but that's another story.

Here is another perspective, you travel across the world to play in a tournament, winner breaks format, loose the lag, your opponent break and runs 9 racks, you pack your cues and go home... fun...
Or go with alternate break and at least you get on the table and maybe on the score board, even if we follow the statistic that show that since it doesn't matter, you were about to lose anyway at least you got to play.

All the WNT events early stages are boring as hell, all the seeded players are playing dead money and win 9-0 or 9-1, give the dead money a reason to come back next time.

The ability to comeback from an 8-1 or something like that, that we saw in Arizona, means that the players have figured out the break.
You want to keep it interesting and keep the winner breaks, bring the 3 points rule in. we will see less cut breaks and more good old pool.
 
skor said:
There was a statistic analysis that showed that there is no difference for the end result, so why do people feel so strong about it?
On one side, I like winner breaks (and the looser rack), sort of prize and punishment for the winner and looser, works great for amateurs, didn't work well for pros when they would argue about the racking and it took forever to rack and get the game moving... now that was a pain to watch... then came referee racking and then the Sardo rack etc etc but that's another story.

Here is another perspective, you travel across the world to play in a tournament, winner breaks format, loose the lag, your opponent break and runs 9 racks, you pack your cues and go home... fun...
Or go with alternate break and at least you get on the table and maybe on the score board, even if we follow the statistic that show that since it doesn't matter, you were about to lose anyway at least you got to play.

All the WNT events early stages are boring as hell, all the seeded players are playing dead money and win 9-0 or 9-1, give the dead money a reason to come back next time.

The ability to comeback from an 8-1 or something like that, that we saw in Arizona, means that the players have figured out the break.
You want to keep it interesting and keep the winner breaks, bring the 3 points rule in. we will see less cut breaks and more good old pool.
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That's why the best solution is winner break but racking/breaking conditions that make something like a 5+ pack highly unlikely without one of the strongest performances of all time.

The US Open final was 13-12, it doesn't get fairer than that.
 
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