Shenzhen Open 2026: Zhao, Higgins, Williams and Ding Out in Deciders
The Shenzhen Open lost four of its biggest names in its first two days at the Bao'an Sports Centre, and every one of them went out 5–4. Zhao Xintong, playing a ranking event in his home city, lost to Scott Donaldson on Monday. Mark Williams, the defending champion, lost to Fan Zhengyi the same day. On Tuesday John Higgins went out to David Grace and Ding Junhui to Ricky Walden.
Four deciders, four exits. The frame-by-frame scores show four quite different ways to lose a match over nine frames.
Zhao: level four times
Zhao never trailed by more than a frame and never led by more than one. Donaldson took the opener, Zhao levelled, Donaldson went ahead again, and then Zhao won two in a row with breaks of 82 and 55 to lead 3–2. Donaldson replied with a 105 and a 62 to go 4–3 up. Zhao forced the decider with a 79.
The last frame was the untidiest of the nine. Donaldson won it 71–17 without a break of 50.
What makes this one stand out is Zhao's record in deciding frames. Last season, in matches of seven frames or longer (leaving out the Championship League and the Shoot Out), he won 11 deciders and lost 3. He beat Mark Selby twice in final frames, Kyren Wilson once and Mark Allen once, in the Players Championship semi-final. This season he has played two deciders and lost both: 6–5 to Zhang Anda at the China Open in August, and now this.
Two matches is not a trend. It is still a strange sight for a player who spent last season winning the close ones.
Higgins: two up, then four down
Higgins opened with a 116 and took the second frame as well. Then Grace won four in a row with breaks of 60, 64, 93 and 68. The Scot answered with a 101 and took the eighth to level at 4–4, the kind of recovery he has made a career out of. Grace settled it with a 60 in the decider.
The four-frame run is the story. Grace scored 322 points to Higgins's 29 across those frames.
Ding: one frame from the last 32
Ding had the best position of the four. He made a 111 in the first frame, led 2–0, and after Walden won three in a row (with a 115 and a 133), Ding took the sixth and seventh with 86 and 82 to lead 4–3.
He then made a 63 in the eighth frame and still lost it, 68–63. Walden won the decider 73–0 without a fifty.
Williams: the comeback that fell short
Williams won this event last year under its old name, the Xi'an Grand Prix, where he beat Shaun Murphy 10–3 in the final. Here he was 4–2 down to Fan, pulled it back to 4–4 with a 118 in the eighth, and lost the last frame 56–47.
What the four deciders had in common
Three of the four final frames were won without a single break of 50: Donaldson's 71–17, Walden's 73–0 and Fan's 56–47. Only Grace made a big one to finish. The other three deciders were won in small pieces, not with one long visit.
This is the argument for best-of-nine as the great leveller. Over nine frames, a player who can make 116s and 111s still has to win a scrappy 50-point frame at the end, and the player across the table only has to be good enough for one visit.
The Form Rating view
Our Form Rating, a margin-weighted Elo over the last 12 months, has the four losers third (Zhao), sixth (Higgins), 11th (Williams) and 18th (Ding) among the players we track. All four were rated above their opponents, Zhao by more than 160 points, and every one of the matches went the distance anyway.
That fits the season so far. As we wrote before the event, Judd Trump went into Shenzhen without a ranking title despite winning 16 of his first 20 matches. The top of the tour is strong over a year, and short matches keep punishing it.
What's left in Shenzhen
Donaldson won another decider on Tuesday, 5–4 against Pang Junxu, to reach the last 16. Selby beat Jackson Page 5–1 with breaks of 138, 135 and 132, Murphy beat Hossein Vafaei 5–1 and Neil Robertson beat Lei Peifan 5–1. Trump went through on a walkover after Anthony McGill withdrew. With Zhao and Ding gone, Si Jiahui, a 5–3 winner over Gary Wilson, is one of the home players still in the draw. The final is on Sunday 4 October.