The first really decent snooker tournament of the season takes place over the next week when the China Championship is played out in erm… China of all places! In a weird turn of events the tournament begins on Wednesday and finishes the following Tuesday. This is nothing if not quirky!
After a bunch of best of seven frame matches to begin the tournament we start off at the best of nine and get longer in this although it is still a far cry to the excellent invitation event this tournament was last year. In all 64 men plus the dreaded wild cards start out on the quest for glory.
Recent Winners
2016 – John Higgins
Top Quarter
The number one seed Mark Selby is the big name in the top quarter but there are some decent challengers to him in here not least the other top 16 members Anthony McGill, Stuart Bingham and Shaun Murphy.
Riga Masters runner up Stephen Maguire is one of the ‘outsiders’ in this quarter while Ken Doherty heads to China in excellent form. The youngster Zhou Yuelong is also in this section as is Martin Gould, the German Masters champion Anthony Hamilton and the other Chinese young star Yan Bingtao.
Second Quarter
Ding Junhui is the top seed in this quarter. He is joined by Barry Hawkins and Ali Carter in terms of seeds. Kyren Wilson was due to be in this part of the draw but he failed in his qualifying match.
Mark King heads the so called outsiders in this section. Ben Woollaston, Mark Davis and Alan McManus are the other fairly high ranked players in what looks a fairly weak quarter it must be said.
Third Quarter
Judd Trump is the highest ranked player in this part of the draw but all the attention will be on Ronnie O’Sullivan here. Marco Fu is also in the section and Liang Wenbo will be looking to win the tournament from this part of the set up too.
The non-top 16 players in this part are quite useful too. They include Dave Gilbert, Luca Brecel, Joe Perry, Graeme Dott, Robert Milkins and Hossein Vafaei so this quarter will take some negotiating.
Bottom Quarter
This is another minefield of a quarter with the ‘defending champion’ John Higgins, Neil Robertson, Mark Allen and Mark Williams lurking. If that wasn’t enough the players ranked outside the top 16 are all of excellent quality here too.
They include the recent Riga Masters winner Ryan Day, Michael White, Xiao Guodong, Michael Holt, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Tom Ford. This has the look of a brutal section about it.
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Betting
In terms of outright betting I am focusing on the top half of the draw because that bottom half looks an absolute minefield to predict unless Ronnie O’Sullivan is on it in which case the 8/1 on him is great value but given the quality opposing him that is not tempting enough.
My main bet in this tournament is going to be Stephen Maguire who looks to be playing well again. He finished last season well and carried that into this season where he made the final of the Riga Masters. He would have won all his qualifying matches in Preston had he not fallen asleep at 3-0 up in one of them so he sets a solid standard in a half of the draw which may not take that much coming through with Selby playing just his second match of the season when he starts this tournament.
I can’t resist someone in the second quarter where Ding is playing his first matches of the new season and has to be rusty. Most of the big names in this section are in the top half of it so I’ve a feeling Mark King could be a huge price at 400/1 to win the tournament and definitely at 25/1 to win the quarter. King played well in the qualifiers in Preston last week and is a tournament winner now of course. If Ding is rusty he could easily go early which opens it right up for King to make at least the QF and from there anything can happen. At those prices I have to invest to see what happens.
Tips
Back S.Maguire to win China Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back M.King to win China Championship (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 401.00 with Skybet (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back M.King to win 2nd Quarter for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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