2015 World Cup (snooker) explained

Tournament Name:	World Cup
Venue:	Wuxi City Sports Park Stadium
Location:	Wuxi
Country:	China
Organisation:	WPBSA
Format:	Non-ranking team event
Total Prize Fund:	$800,000
Winners Share:	$200,000
Highest Break:	137
Winner:	China B Zhou Yuelong Yan Bingtao
Runner Up:	John Higgins Stephen Maguire
Score:	4–1
Previous:	2011
Next:	2017

The 2015 Nongfu Spring World Cup was a professional non-ranking team snooker tournament that took place from 15 to 21 June 2015 at the Wuxi City Sports Park Stadium in Wuxi, China.^{[1] [2]} It was the 14th edition of the event, and it was televised live by Eurosport.^[3]

Teams and players

Seed	Nation	Player 1	Player 2
1	A		Xiao Guodong
2			Stuart Bingham
3			Vinnie Calabrese
4			Au Chi-wai
5			Stephen Maguire
6			Michael White
7			Fergal O'Brien
8			Anita Maflin
			KK Chan
			Ehsan Heydari Nezhad
			Muhammad Sajjad
	B		Yan Bingtao
			Pankaj Advani
			Mohd Reza Hassan
			Ali Alobaidaly
			Thepchaiya Un-Nooh
			Alex Borg
			Itaro Santos
			Adam Stefanow
			Mohamed Shehab
			Paul Schopf
			Tomasz Skalski
			Joe Swail
			Felix Frede

Prize fund

• Winner: $200,000
• Runner-Up: $100,000
• Semi-final: $60,000
• Quarter-final: $40,000
• Third in group: $22,500
• Fourth in group: $15,000
• Fifth in group: $10,000
• Sixth in group: $7,500
• Total: $800,000

Format

The 2015 World Cup consisted of 24 national teams, with two players competing for each side, and the initial round divided the entrants into four pools of six sides apiece. During the Group Stage, every national team played a best-of-five match against each of the other sides in their pool. Three victories were required to secure a head-to-head team win, but all five individual contests needed to be played, similar to the Davis Cup and Fed Cup formats in professional tennis. All matches were scheduled to include two singles contests, a doubles encounter, and two reverse singles showdowns. The top two teams from each bracket advanced to the Knockout Stages.

During the Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals, and Championship Final, the remaining national sides were paired off a head-to-head knockout bracket. The format for these head-to-head matches was a sudden death best-of-seven competition, similar to professional sporting events like baseball's World Series and basketball's NBA Finals, with the contest coming to an end as soon as one team accumulated four individual victories. These encounters were scheduled as two singles showdowns, a doubles match, two reverse singles contests, another doubles encounter, and a winner-take-all singles showdown if necessary. The side that won the Final were named champions.

Group round

Group A

Gameday	Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2
15 June 2015	A	3–2				3–2				5–0
16 June 2015	A	5–0				0–5				5–0
17 June 2015	A	5–0				0–5				3–2
18 June 2015	A	5–0				3–2				2–3
19 June 2015	A	3–2				4–1				1–4

width=20	Place	width=20	Seed	width=165	Team	width=20	Games	width=20	Frames	width=20	Frames won	width=20	Frames lost	width=20	Difference	width=20	Points
1	1	A	5	25	21	4	17	21
2			5	25	19	6	13	19
3			5	25	16	9	7	16
4			5	25	8	17	−9	8
5	8		5	25	7	18	−11	7
6			5	25	4	21	−17	4

Group B

Gameday	Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2
15 June 2015		3–2				4–1				2–3
16 June 2015		3–2				2–3				0–5
17 June 2015		2–3				4–1				1–4
18 June 2015		1–4				1–4				2–3
19 June 2015		5–0				2–3				4–1

width=20	Place	width=20	Seed	width=165	Team	width=20	Games	width=20	Frames	width=20	Frames won	width=20	Frames lost	width=20	Difference	width=20	Points
1			5	25	17	8	9	17
2	5		5	25	16	9	7	16
3	4		5	25	14	11	3	14
4			5	25	13	12	1	13
5			5	25	10	15	−5	10
6			5	25	5	20	−15	5

Group C

Gameday	Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2
15 June 2015		3–2				5–0				0–5
16 June 2015		2–3				4–1				1–4
17 June 2015		3–2				4–1				2–3
18 June 2015		4–1				4–1				4–1
19 June 2015		2–3				4–1				3–2

width=20	Place	width=20	Seed	width=165	Team	width=20	Games	width=20	Frames	width=20	Frames won	width=20	Frames lost	width=20	Difference	width=20	Points
1	6		5	25	20	5	15	20
2	3		5	25	14	11	3	14
3			5	25	13	12	1	13
4			5	25	13	12	1	13
5			5	25	8	17	−9	8
6			5	25	7	18	−11	7

Group D

Gameday	Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2		Team 1	Score	Team 2
15 June 2015		1–4				1–4	B			2–3
16 June 2015		3–2	B			5–0				3–2
17 June 2015		4–1			B	5–0				2–3
18 June 2015		5–0			B	3–2				4–1
19 June 2015		3–2			B	5–0				4–1

width=20	Place	width=20	Seed	width=165	Team	width=20	Games	width=20	Frames	width=20	Frames won	width=20	Frames lost	width=20	Difference	width=20	Points
1		B	5	25	19	6	13	19
2			5	25	16	9	7	16
3	2		5	25	16	9	7	16
4	7		5	25	14	11	3	14
5			5	25	7	18	−11	7
6			5	25	3	22	−19	3

Final round

Final

Final: Best of 7 frames. Referee: Paul Collier. Wuxi City Sports Park Stadium, Wuxi, China, 21 June 2015.
John Higgins Stephen Maguire	1–4	Zhou Yuelong Yan Bingtao B
0–100 (100), 6–100 (56),,,
37	Highest break	100
0	Century breaks	1
0	50+ breaks	2

Century breaks

There were 10 century breaks in the tournament.^[4]

• – 137 Pankaj Advani
• B – 134, 100 Yan Bingtao
• – 130, 108 Mark Williams
• – 122 John Higgins
• – 111 Neil Robertson
• – 108 Dechawat Poomjaeng
• – 105 Itaro Santos
• – 105 Tony Drago

Notes and References

1. http://www.snooker.org/res/index.asp?event=452 Nongfu Spring World Cup
2. Web site: WorldSnookerData.com: World Cup . 2015-10-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20151020043248/http://livescores.worldsnookerdata.com/Matches/Index/13847/world-cup . 2015-10-20 . dead .
3. http://www.worldsnooker.com/world-cup-eurosport-schedules/ Eurosport transmission schedules for the Nongfu Spring World Cup
4. Web site: 2015 World Cup – Century breaks . 2015-10-21 . https://web.archive.org/web/20150618132003/http://livescores.worldsnookerdata.com/Centuries/CenturyBreaks/13847/world-cup . 2015-06-18 . dead .