Watching a match / RANK147
King of the decider? Kyren Wilson has won 9 of 10 this season
Of this season’s matches that went to a final frame, Wilson has won nine of ten, four of them after trailing. How much of that is skill and how much is luck?
Data to 4 November 2026, from WST scores collected on this site. A decider means the match went the full distance with both players one frame from victory, such as 6–5 or 4–3; walkovers and retirements are excluded. Frame-by-frame scores cover matches from 13 September only; earlier seasons are collected from January 2024 and may be incomplete.
Ten deciders, nine wins
So far in 2026/27, 208 of the 1,167 completed matches on this site went to a deciding frame, about 18%. Wilson has played 28 (excluding the Championship League group stage, explained below), and ten of them went the distance, more than a third.
He lost only one of those ten: 4–5 to Ali Carter in the third round of the Wuhan Open in August. He won the other nine, four of them since late October at the Northern Ireland Open and the International Championship.
| Event | Round | Opponent | Score (Wilson first) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shanghai Masters | Quarter-final | Mark Williams | 6–5 | Won |
| China Open | Round 1 | Aaron Hill | 6–5 | Won |
| Wuhan Open | Round 3 | Ali Carter | 4–5 | Lost |
| English Open | Round 2 | Chang Bingyu | 4–3 | Won |
| English Open | Round 3 | Mark Selby | 4–3 | Won |
| International Championship qualifiers | Round 1 | Leone Crowley | 6–5 | Won |
| Northern Ireland Open | Round 3 | Pang Junxu | 4–3 | Won |
| Northern Ireland Open | Semi-final | Sam Craigie | 6–5 | Won |
| International Championship | Round 2 | Liam Highfield | 6–5 | Won |
| International Championship | Round 4 | Oliver Lines | 6–5 | Won |
Four of five were comebacks
Matches from mid-September have frame-by-frame scores, so we can see how they reached the decider. Wilson played five of these, and in four he came from behind.
Against Crowley in International Championship qualifying he trailed 2–5 and won the last four frames. Against Craigie in the Northern Ireland Open semi-final and Highfield in round two of the International Championship he trailed 3–5 and won three in a row. Against Lines in round four he was 4–5 down and won the last two. Only his 4–3 win over Pang Junxu in Northern Ireland alternated frame by frame.
Compared with the rest of the tour
Among players with at least five deciders this season, Jak Jones and Gong Chenzhi have the best records at five from five, though from half as many matches as Wilson. Mark Selby has won six of eight; Mark Williams and Zhou Yuelong have each won four of eight.
At the other end, Xiao Guodong, Jimmy Robertson, Oliver Lines, Liam Highfield, Louis Heathcote and Thanawat Tirapongpaiboon have each won one of five, and Lines and Highfield each lost one of theirs to Wilson.
| Player | Deciders | Won | Win rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jak Jones | 5 | 5 | 100% |
| Gong Chenzhi | 5 | 5 | 100% |
| Kyren Wilson | 10 | 9 | 90% |
| Mark Selby | 8 | 6 | 75% |
| Wu Yize | 7 | 5 | 71% |
| Mark Williams | 8 | 4 | 50% |
| Zhou Yuelong | 8 | 4 | 50% |
Skill or luck?
If every decider were a coin flip, the chance of winning nine or more of ten would be about 1%. That sounds remarkable, but we picked the most extreme player out of more than a hundred, and someone always ends up at the tail of the distribution, so the figure overstates the surprise.
Earlier seasons are more telling. On this site’s records Wilson won 9 of 15 deciders in 2024/25 (60%) and 6 of 8 in 2025/26 (75%). Since January 2024 he has won 27 of 37, about 73%. His edge in deciders is real, but this season’s 90% is more likely to drift back towards that long-run level.
For contrast, he is 13–5 in the 18 matches this season that did not go the distance. That leaves out the Championship League stage-one group: the official record shows three 0–3 defeats with no frame scores, which may be forfeits after a withdrawal rather than matches actually played.
Our view
Decider records swing a lot, and 90% on its own overstates things. But the four comebacks share something the data shows directly: in the 12 consecutive frames he won while catching up, no opponent scored more than 49 in a frame. He was not relying on late errors; he was winning frames in which his opponents barely got a look.
For viewers, the practical lesson is that when a Wilson match reaches its late stages, trailing on frames does not necessarily mean losing the match. To estimate his chances in his next decider, we would rely on his long-run figure of about 73% since 2024 rather than this season’s 90%.