The 2016 China Championship (officially the 2016 Evergrande China Championship) was a professional non-ranking snooker tournament that took place between 1–5 November 2016 in Guangzhou, China.
It was the first staging of the tournament, and the plans were for it to become a full ranking event for the following three years, with the biggest prize pool for any event ever held outside the UK previously.
John Higgins became the inaugural winner by beating Stuart Bingham 10–7 in the final.
Prize fund The breakdown of prize money from this year is shown below:
Winner: £200,000 Runner-up: £100,000 Semi-final: £50,000 Quarter-final: £30,000 Last 16: £15,000 Highest break: £10,000 Total: £650,000
The "rolling 147 prize" for a maximum break stands at £TBD.
Seeding list
The top 10 snooker players on the ranking list after the Shanghai Masters, along with the top 4 players on the one year prize money ranking list were invited to participate in the event. The remaining two players (Marco Fu and Liang Wenbo) were selected by the Chinese Billiards and Snooker Association. Mark Williams became eligible to participate after the withdrawal of world number 10 Ronnie O'Sullivan from the competition, as he was next in line to qualify through his official world ranking.
Source:
Seed Player Total Rankings 1 Year Rankings1 Mark Selby690,65060,7752 Stuart Bingham516,53434,7753 Shaun Murphy447,30826,0004 Judd Trump409,16619,0005 John Higgins408,72522,7506 Ding Junhui376,92591,5007 Neil Robertson359,58258,5008 Mark Allen336,5929,7259 Ricky Walden312,2089,400w/d Ronnie O'Sullivan302,3338,00010 Mark Williams243,00822,25011 Ali Carter226,200105,15012 Anthony McGill197,37573,52513 Joe Perry295,13341,05014 Michael Holt149,68338,150 Marco FuQualified via CBSA Wildcard Liang WenboQualified via CBSA Wildcard
Main draw
Final Final: Best of 19 frames. Referee: Zhou Ying.Guangzhou Gymnasium, Guangzhou, China, 5 November 2016. John Higgins (5) 10–7 Stuart Bingham (2) Afternoon: 77–37, 74–17, , , , , , , Evening: 28–55, 4–98 (98), , , , , , 134 Highest break 112 3 Century breaks 2 6 50+ breaks 7
Century breaks
144, 129, 121, 101 Shaun Murphy 141, 122, 118, 114, 112, 104, 102 Stuart Bingham 140, 131, 114, 106, 100 Mark Allen 134, 131, 123, 101, 100 John Higgins 127 Mark Selby
References