The snooker roadshow heads to Kochi this week for the rearranged Indian Open as the race for tour survival and automatic qualification for the World Championship cranks up another notch as we head towards the business end of the season.
This tournament was due to take place much earlier in the campaign, so John Higgins has had to wait a while to defend the title, but he is out in India looking to do just that while many others will be looking for big weeks.
Recent Winners
2017 – John Higgins
2016 – Anthony McGill
2015 – Michael White
2013 – Ding Junhui
The Format
We have already had a qualifying round for this tournament so there will be just 64 men in the field this week as well as a few Indian wildcards. The tournament is a best of seven frame event right up until the final when the champion will be determined in a race to five. The last four rounds of the event take place on the final two days of it so those who might be a little fatigued will face a real challenge the longer they remain in the event. This tournament was due to be staged in September but the floods in the area caused its delay. It does mean the seedings are from the rankings back then which opens up some weaker parts of the draw.
Top Quarter
John Higgins is the defending champion and the number one seed accordingly and he will be out to end this crazy slump that he has been on. I say slump because he hasn’t really featured in the business stages of many tournaments this season but he is part of next week’s Players Championship field so he can’t have been all bad.
Liang Wenbo is the next highest seeded player in the top quarter with the likes of Joe Perry, Dave Gilbert and Michael White all eyeing up another ranking event title. Hossein Vafaei, Peter Ebdon, Sam Craigie, Li Hang and Ben Woollaston will all be hoping to do wonders for their rankings over the course of the week.
Second Quarter
Stuart Bingham is a standout headline attraction in this second quarter of the draw. The English Open winner and Welsh Open finalist looks to be hitting the cue ball nicely and with Jack Lisowski the only other top 16 member in this section, both men look to have an ideal chance for another deep run in a tournament.
The talented Yan Bingtao can do his chances of sneaking into the top 16 before the World Championship no harm with a big run this week while Gary Wilson, Tom Ford, Gerard Greene, Matt Selt and Fergal O’Brien are all seasoned campaigners who will know this isn’t the strongest field, and who will fancy their chances accordingly.
Third Quarter
Anyone who was anyone in this quarter to begin with lost in the qualifying round and as such there is not a single top 16 member in this part of the draw. It is actually Graeme Dott who is the highest seeded player in it so this one looks to be wide open with all 16 men in it surely eyeing up a big week.
Yuan Sijun is making big waves in the game at the minute and he could do some damage in this quarter while European Masters finalist Mark Davis will be looking for another big run. Alexander Ursenbacher, Michael Holt, Zhou Yuelong and Michael Georgiou will be thinking likewise while Shootout champion Thepchaiya Un-Nooh goes in search of successive ranking titles.
Bottom Quarter
Shaun Murphy has to come through his qualifying round match to take his place in the main draw but assuming he does that he will be the top ranked player in the bottom quarter. Luca Brecel is the other man from the top 16 in the world rankings to compete in this section of the draw and he should be eyeing up a deep run.
This is another quarter littered with players capable of going deep. Jimmy Robertson has already won the European Masters this season and will go in search of title number two here, while Anthony Hamilton will look to add to his German Masters title of a couple of years ago. Andrew Higginson, Scott Donaldson, Zhao Xintong and Chris Wakelin will look to prove themselves as big dangers.
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Betting
I’ll take an outright bet from each half of the draw this week with the bottom half man being Luca Brecel. I remain convinced he is hitting the ball nicely and he should absolutely feast on this half of the draw. Even if Shaun Murphy makes it through he’s in no form whatsoever at the minute, and in truth is looking a bit of a shambles. He is the only top 16 player Brecel can encounter before the final of this tournament. The Belgian isn’t in the Players Championship next week so he is a sitting duck in the race for Sheffield so a big week here can all but confirm his place there. He has everything needed to deliver it.
Hossein Vafaei is coming into this tournament in a bit of form and you would think he will be suited to the heavier Asian conditions, given that he comes from that part of the world. Vafaei made the semi-final of the Welsh Open, where only the eventual winner Neil Robertson was too good for him, and then in China Open qualifying last week he smacked in a 146 break on his way to booking his place on the plane to Beijing. He also had a 108 and a 98 break in that match so he’s hitting the ball well. He beat Mark Selby in Cardiff so he is clearly playing well and although John Higgins is in his quarter he’s in no form either. The Iranian has a better chance than 80/1 suggests here.
Tips
Back L.Brecel to win Indian Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)
Back H.Vafaei to win Indian Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 81.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)
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