The Snookerbacker Blog

Looking for another title

The Welsh Open begins in Newport tomorrow from the creatively named Newport Centre and despite my grumblings about shortened formats and lazy scheduling it is at least a ranking event which will have some decent coverage on both BBC Wales and Eurosport.

This means that an outright preview is the order of the day given that we are on a decent run in that particular market having tipped up the last two main event winners in Mark Selby for the UK (7/1) and Ali Carter for Germany (25/1).

You can find the full draw for the event by clicking here for the drawsheet complete with arrows that World Snooker have added for artistic/autistic effect. You can also check who plays who and when by clicking here and the outright prices for the tournament from blog partners Apollobet can be found by clicking here.

Ding Junhui is the current holder and is one of a number of players that have had their final qualifying match held over to this venue. The likes of Neil Robertson, Mark Allen, Stephen Maguire and Shaun Murphy all had to play a match in the cubicles in front of no man and his dog to qualify which they duly did, but unfortunately we lost German Masters champion Ali in mid-flight as he was beaten by Gerard Greene depriving him of the chance to visit this cosmopolitan mecca of South Wales once more.

Other points to note are that my best pal and ultimate legend Steve Davis has qualified to play Mark Selby in one of the held over matches tomorrow afternoon and also that SB Classic regular Gareth Allen is involved and gets to play John Higgins on the TV in his home country; a proud moment for him. In fact tomorrow is entirely made up of final qualifying round matches before the last 32 gets underway on Tuesday.

As all matches up to the last 8 are the best of 7 frames we can only hope that one of the outright picks makes it to then when it becomes a proper tournament. My only other hope is that if this event is ever held again, which I sincerely hope it is given its rich history, that common sense prevails and it reverts back to the best of 9 frame format of old to make it a decent betting event for regular snooker punters, lots of whom are not enthusiastic about it now from a punting perspective at all having had to endure this format for the overly long and a bit dull PTC schedule all season.

Anyway, as ever I will work down the quarters and also encompass the matches being played on Monday, in the unlikely event that an attractive price might be on offer from any of those miserly bookies.

Quarter One:

Assuming that Ding takes care of Dechawat Poomjaeng here he will face a tricky opener against Mark King who he lost to in the Shanghai Masters, last week’s finalist in Germany Marco Fu plays Mark Allen to decide who meets the winner of that match so this is a very tricky section of the draw. When we look at the other mini-section in this quarter it would look to me like the winner of this top segment will be the quarter-finalist from this part of the draw. Mark Williams isn’t playing well lately and to be honest the Welsh players haven’t been doing all that well in this in recent years so at this point in the season you would have to say it would take a huge reversal in form for MJW or indeed any Welsh player to be lifting the trophy, he also may have other things on his mind at the moment of a more personal nature so I can’t really see him being a contender this week. Looking at this section for me it is a question of who you fancy out of Ding and Allen, on nothing more than one of my funny feelings it’s Allen, I think if he can get through to the QF’s he might take some stopping.

Quarter Winner: Allen

Recommended Bet: 2.5 points on Mark Allen to win the Welsh Open at 12/1 with Apollobet

Can he toyn bak da klok?

Quarter Two: 

Neil Robertson and John Higgins are the big names in this part of the draw and looking around it will be a bit surprising if they don’t battle out a quarter final. However, there are players in there more than capable of having a run in this including Stuart Bingham and Ricky Walden, both of whom have gone a little off the boil of late after great starts to the season but who may have got their bad patch out of the way in time for a surge at the end of the season. Higgins has lacked that killer instinct lately and until I can see evidence that he is getting it back I can’t back him, I have him at 14/1 for Sheffield so I hope it is temporary but he just doesn’t look right to me lately. I actually think that Ken Doherty might give him a decent game should he get past Mr Allen tomorrow. Robbo looked tired in Berlin to me but he’s as solid as they come and his chances have to be respected with what looks like a half-decent draw. But something is telling me that neither of these big two will win here, I’m going to take a very small chance on Doherty in the outrights but if someone put a gun to my head I’d say Robbo will emerge from this quarter but not end up winning it.

Quarter Winner: Robertson

Recommended Bet: 0.5 points each way on Ken Doherty to win the Welsh Open (lol,rofl,lmfao) at 150/1 generally.   

Quarter Three:

Clive Everton has written a particularly cutting article about Judd Trump in the latest edition of Snooker Scene where he questions both the dedication to the sport and motives of the young pretender who still we mustn’t forget only has three ranking titles to his name. I think the piece does echo some of the views being expressed about Judd by the wider audience but for me he remains a great talent who just seems for whatever reason to have lost his way a bit since winning the International Championship and all that dosh. The message of the piece is that he may need a reality check, but as those who have a few knocks know, youth is wasted on the young. The best way to answer critics is of course on the table and if he needed motivation all he needs to do is to read it and he’ll have all he needs. On paper he should make the quarter finals here to face either Shaun Murphy or Graeme Dott, but since when has paper meant anything? Former Welsh Open runner-up Andrew Higginson will have something to say about that as might Dominic Dale in Round 1 assuming Judd can get past Mike Dunn tomorrow, which is by no means a certainty if you base your judgement on motivation. I don’t think there is any value in backing Judd at 8/1 (best price with Apollobet) when a proven winner in decent form like Dott is available at 33′s, so for this quarter although I may be foolishly ruling out a certain Mr Murphy, I will again go for the value option.

Quarter Winner: Dott

Recommended Bet: 1 point each way on Graeme Dott to win the Welsh Open at 33/1 with Skybet.   

Pull your best snooker face.

Quarter Four:

The headliners in this section are Stephen Maguire and Mark Selby who are seeded to meet in the quarter finals should they both beat their lower ranked opponents. I can’t back Maguire at the moment, he had a spell earlier in the season and to the back of last where he again threatened to be the player that he should have been all his career, but once again he has started to fall back into old habits and I think he is still slightly overrated at the bookies as much as players such as Dott or Carter still offer some value. It may be a mistake to write him off so easily of course and if he gets his head down he has proved time and again that he can beat anyone in certain events at certain times. But a potentially tricky first match against Anthony Hamilton, that scruffbag from Pottingham who has beaten him 2 out of the last 3 times may see the Master Cuebanger at his banging best straight off. For me, despite the presence of Matthew Stevens, Ryan Day, Joe Perry and Liang Wenbo this only leaves Selby as an option. He’s the rightful favourite for the tournament, he’s won it before, he only lost in Germany because he played two matches in a day and had a toughie against Ding first off, he could be lifting another trophy come next weekend.

Recommended Bet: 3 points on Mark Selby to win the Welsh Open at 7/1 with Boylesports. 

Recommended Day One Match Bets:

2 points on Liang Wenbo to beat Ryan Day at 6/5 with Sportingbet.

2 point treble on Dechawat, Chuang and Wells all (+2.5 frames) pays almost 7/2 at Apollobet