I went through the Shaw-Cheng match and catalogued Shaw’s errors and tactical plays.
9:23 - makes 3 balls on the break, misses a long initial shot on the 2-ball and sells out. Physical error
15:00 - pushes out and baits Cheng into a failed safety. Tactical win
16:55 - Same rack, gets sloppy on position from 3-4. This leads to a tougher positional play from 4-5 than needed and he hooks himself on the 5. Mental error
note: Cheng makes his own positional error right back, giving Shaw the game and 3-2 lead
24:35 - failed safety but not an easy one, and relatively unavoidable given position off the break. Physical error/tactical loss
28:46 - failed safety after an illegal break by Cheng, who is able to block his path back to the ball after his turn at the table. Jump banks the 2 in and then hooks himself. Tactical loss
30:28 - after the previous exchange, scratches on the 3. Bad mental error
Rack 9 - he was out of line the whole rack. Hard to categorize this one. After missing a bank on the 8 he does leave Kevin stuck on the rail, which I’ll call a tactical win as a 2-way shot, and he gets away with it.
43:23 - with a completely open table, makes a terrible mental error hooking himself on the 7. The cue ball should have been nowhere near where it ended up. He could have been up 7-4 but instead it’s 6-5.
54:01 - misses the 3 ball. Thin cut, physical error.
Rack 13 - again gets out of line quite a bit but shoots his way through it
58:10 - nice safety, tactical win
59:18 - however, that is followed by a failed safety, tactical loss. Cheng has clear look at the ball for a safety and Shaw fouls
1:17:11 - misses the 3, looks to be caused by trying to do too much with the ball. He was in a weird position. I’d call this a physical error on a tough shot. If the cue ball had followed a few inches further he could have followed it off the short rail.
That is just too many unforced errors and poor tactical plays to beat someone like Cheng.
