The final of the China Championship will take place on Sunday over the course of two sessions where a new name is guaranteed to be etched on the trophy as Shaun Murphy takes on Mark Williams for the title in Guangzhou.
The winner of this final will pocket a cool £150,000 which equates to the same number of ranking points so there is plenty at stake for the two men in this concluding match to what has been a decent week of snooker.
Shaun Murphy
It is some purple patch of form that Shaun Murphy is currently with this his third successive final. He didn’t win either of the first two but he was a strong outsider in both to Judd Trump and Ronnie O’Sullivan. That isn’t the case here so he will be eager to make up for missing out on the previous two. He has played well to get into this final and definitely deserves to be here and will hope that the experience of the last couple of weeks will stand him in good stead.
Murphy has looked a million dollars this week. He hasn’t just scored well but he has scored with authority. He has attacked the balls and looks like clearing them up every time he gets in and that is never a bad thing. That is taking away the scrutiny on his weakness in the safety department and so all in all the Magician is looking a pretty daunting proposition right now.
Mark Williams
This has been a big week for Mark Williams. I wouldn’t patronise him to suggest that he has been at his very best because he hasn’t but he has delivered the goods when he has needed to in both comfortable matches and in tighter battles, as he showed against Hossein Vafaei in his semi-final where he potted an incredible opening red to get in and then made enough from it to book his place in this final.
Experience is a huge thing for Williams in this final and he has so much of it. He will not panic in any situation and if he is given the chance to be competitive in this match he will be. Whether he can stem the flow of breaks from Murphy will be the key thing but you never put anything beyond this classy player. He’ll go looking for a title in a third straight season which is no mean effort.
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Head-to-Head
These two men have met on 27 previous occasions and it could barely be any closer between them with Williams leading 14-13 on past meetings. He leads 86-81 in frames too so everything between the two is quite tight. Murphy has had the upper hand in recent times though having won three of their last four battles including in the Shanghai Masters earlier in the month. This is the first time the two men will meet in a major final which brings a potentially different dynamic.
Betting
I’m not betting on this final. The reason for that is I’m already on Shaun Murphy to win it at 18/1 and I’m not leaving him now. If I wasn’t already on Murphy I would certainly be on him here so anyone who didn’t follow me in on the Magician at the start of the week shouldn’t be put off backing him in this final.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a tight match so there is a good chance that over in the frames does land but I don’t really want to be sweating over anything when I’m involved enough on the final already. I do think this will be tight and as a result it may be tense but hopefully the two previous finals he has played gives Murphy the upper hand here.
Tips
No Bet
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