We are guaranteed a new champion of The Masters on Sunday when Mark Allen battles it out with Kyren Wilson in the final of the invitational tournament with a huge first prize and the prestigious Paul Hunter Trophy up for grabs.
Both men are in their first Masters final but they have been the two best players this week and thoroughly deserve to be in the position that they are in. Whoever wins will land a Triple Crown event for the first time.
Mark Allen
In some ways you would suggest if there is any justice in the world then Mark Allen would win this final. I say that because he has beaten arguably two of the best three players in the game to make it into this title showdown having come past Ronnie O’Sullivan and John Higgins in the last two matches. He only dropped four frames in those matches too.
Allen has scored brilliantly in this tournament. Indeed when he has been in the balls he has looked a million dollars and with the quality of his tactical game if he can score well here then he is going to be very tough to beat. He has been in a Triple Crown final before and although he lost it he put up a wonderful performance.
Kyren Wilson
Considering he had not won a match in The Masters when he arrived in London at the beginning of the week you would have to say this is something of a fairytale run for Kyren Wilson. That is not to say that it is unexpected because he was always more than good enough to compete in a tournament of this kind but he wouldn’t have been towards the top of the list of potential finalists starting the week.
I think we should recognise that Wilson has ridden his luck this week but the way he roared back from 5-2 down to Judd Trump in the semi-final spoke of a man who believes in himself and who is not going to be overawed by the occasion. Just like Allen, Wilson has scored very strongly when he has been in the balls this week.
Head to Head
There have been nine previous matches between these two finalists if you include their Championship League meetings and Wilson has the slight edge 5-4. Their two biggest meetings have gone his way too. Earlier in the season he beat Allen 6-5 in a high quality World Open semi-final and two years ago he beat him 13-9 in the World Championship.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
I’m with Mark Allen here. I’m a big fan of Kyren Wilson but if we are being brutally honest he has ridden his luck a little this week. An outrageous fluke at 4-4 against Hawkins sent him on his way to victory in that match and then in his semi-final he was gone at 5-2 having a mow at everything and somehow never managed to leave something. Had he left a chance he would have been out.
Nothing like that applies to Mark Allen. He has front run in style this week and done so against quality opponents who have played well against him in the main. He has attacked when he has needed to and played tight safety when that need has arisen too.
I wonder how Wilson will be feeling going into this final. This is his third final of the season but he has been thrashed in the first two albeit without doing a huge amount wrong but those kind of things can get into the head. Allen nearly always produces in finals and I think he’ll do so here and win no worse than 10-8.
Tips
WON – Back M.Allen (-1.5 frames) to beat K.Wilson for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2018
