The 2 records of some sort today are Appleton coming back from being 1-7 down to win 9-8 and Fu Che Wei whitewashing his opponent 9-0
There are a few certainties in this W9B
Certainty #1 Form changes daily.
It is not flavour (player) of the month or week anymore ...it is flavour (player) of the day
When 1st stage qualifiers started, Cheng Chieh and Ping Chung were rock stars as they were first to stroll thru the 1st chance qualifiers while others were struggling. Today they struggled.
I was impressed by Johann Chua when I first saw him played Japan Open where he got into last 4 eventually losing hill hill to Chang. Then in the qualifiers here he struggled and he was no longer the flavor. He managed to squeezed thru to group stage after a Peruvian player withdraw and he had same stats as Hideaki so they played off and he won. And now today he is the flavour again
Yesterday Efren and Lee Van were the comeback kings and everyone was doing song and dance about their clutch performances. Today the flavour switched to Appleton who is the new clutch king. Tomorrow someone else?
This is still group stage and when it comes to knockout stage which starts on day after tomorrow 25Jun, it is different ball game- You can throw out todays form book cos tomorrow and day after tomorrow and the next day have different flavours. In fact those who peaked in form too early in group stages are less likely to go on and win whole thing. if I was picking a winner I would be looking for guys who are on losers side or not doing well but are in last 64
Certainty #2 These ex-champs will not win
Although a statistical one, these ex champions will not win this year
Thorsten
Appleton
Daryl Peach
Thorsten just won last year and only one to win consecutive championship was Earl abt 20 years ago. Earl and Thorsten won their next championship about 10 years apart. Before that the period was shorter 7 years in case of Chao and 5 years of Archer. You can say that competition these days is so much higher so it takes longer time for someone to win 2nd or 3rd championship. If we go on 10 year rule between consecutive championships then that rules out those 3.
Of the remaining 96 players at least half can win it all. So it is highly likely that this year's winner will be a new face. I am hoping some young kid like Wang Can , Ping Chung, Johann Chua, Cheng Chieh will win it as that will be great for the game
Certainty #3 -That guy Ralf Souquet always gets into knockout stages
