The final of the International Championship will take place in Daqing on Sunday with Mark Selby looking to defend his title successfully when he faces Mark Allen over the best of 19 frames across two sessions of play.
Both men have negotiated a tricky path through to this final but look to be peaking at the right time so we should be in for a cracking contest to round off what has been a very entertaining week in China.
Mark Selby
The world number one goes into this final off the back of a demolition job on Martin Gould in the semi-final on Friday. He is notoriously tough to beat over the longer distances and should have plenty of confidence from his performances so far this week. As ever in these kind of events he appears to be getting better as it goes on.
Selby has had the day off since his semi-final which some consider a good thing and it will be interesting to see if he gets stuck in at the level he played at in that semi or whether he needs a few frames to get back into his stride. You get the feeling that having made it this far he is going to take some stopping.
Mark Allen
After a real battle to make it into the semi-final Mark Allen produced his best performance of the week once he got there. He took Yan Bingtao to the cleaners to win 9-2. He put the pressure on the youngster from the outset and then fed on the mistakes of the young Chinese player to make another major China final.
One of the eye catching things about Allen this week has been his scoring. He banged in another couple of centuries in the semi-final to follow a raft of them throughout the tournament to date and if he can keep that scoring up then there is no reason why he can’t lay down a significant challenge to Selby in this final.
Head to Head
These two have played 15 times in the past and Mark Allen actually leads their head to head 8-7. He has won the last three meetings and seven of the last eight. Those previous three wins have all been 6-5 and there have been many other occasions that these two have done to deciding frames. This is the first time they will have met over a longer distance than the best of 11.
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Betting
I’m on Mark Allen at 28/1 to win this final and having guaranteed 14pts from the place on the outright bet on him I’m not going to lay off or anything like that. I’m not going to bet on the match outcome either. Allen’s recent record suggests he has every chance and with the motivation of a place in the Champion of Champions should he win I’ll sit back and hope he does so.
The record between the two would suggest that we are in for a lengthy final here and with the way both have been scoring this week, and the fact that their meetings are generally of high quality, I’m expecting the scoring to continue here. The over 12.5 50+ breaks line looks very tasty especially if we are to get 17+ frames in the final of which the likelihood must be good.
In winning their nine frames in the semi-finals Selby hit six 50+ breaks and Allen made eight. I think between them they’ll make 13 more here at the very least.
Tips
WON – Back Over 12.5 50+ breaks for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Paddy Power
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