The first ranking tournament of the snooker year is the German Masters and it begins inside the Tempodrom in Berlin on Wednesday with 32 leading players looking to pick up the first prize and an early title for 2019.
Mark Williams did exactly that when he used this tournament as the catalyst for the form which took him to the world title last year. He is in the field looking to defend his title but faces some pretty stiff competition. We’ve had two qualifying rounds for this event so the action should be tasty right from the start.
Recent Winners
2018 – Mark Williams
2017 – Anthony Hamilton
2016 – Martin Gould
2015 – Mark Selby
2014 – Ding Junhui
2013 – Ali Carter
2012 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2011 – Mark Williams
The Format
The first round, second round and the quarter finals are the best of nine frames this week, with some players having to play twice on Thursday. Those who make it to the semi-finals on Saturday will compete over the best of 11 frames and then the champion will be crowned on Sunday when the finalists face off across two sessions and the best of 17 frames.
Top Quarter
Mark Williams has made it this far and will try to defend the title from the top quarter as the number one seed. Shaun Murphy and Kyren Wilson are two other members of the top 16 who have made it through to the final stages in this quarter and they will be out to land another title over the course of the five days.
Joe Perry sets the standard for those outside the top 16 in this quarter while Zhou Yuelong could be a very dangerous operator with the draw that he has. Sam Baird, Peter Ebdon and Rory McLeod will look to upset the odds in what is a pretty quick fire tournament. They all have tricky first round draws though.
Second Quarter
The main man Judd Trump is the star attraction in the second quarter. The Northern Ireland Open and Masters champion has made it through to this stage when he is joined by fellow top 16 members Barry Hawkins and Stephen Maguire, who will be looking to put poor runs in The Masters behind them and look to land a first title of 2019.
Yan Bingtao is the obvious main man of those outside the top 16 to make it through in this quarter. He has tournament winning credentials and given the roll of honour in this event it would be foolish to write him off here. Shootout winner Michael Georgiou lines up in this quarter while Robert Milkins and Li Hang can be dangerous in this section too.
Third Quarter
This is probably the most open of the four quarters this week. I say that because the two main seeds are John Higgins and Ding Junhui and they have both had pretty ordinary first halves of the season. That doesn’t mean that they will struggle here but Ryan Day and Jack Lisowski will be well aware of the opportunity they have in this tournament I would suggest.
Xiao Guodong is the highest ranked of the qualifiers or non-top 16 players in this quarter but in truth the outsiders are exactly that even allowing for the poor form of a couple of the seeds. Yuan Sijun, Duane Jones and Fergal O’Brien are the other players making up this part of the draw and probably eyeing up a deep run.
Bottom Quarter
If anything the last quarter is probably the toughest. It certainly looks the most competitive anyway. World number one Mark Selby will be looking to put that disastrous Masters quarter final behind him but he will face competition from Neil Robertson and Stuart Bingham if he is to make it out of this quarter.
They are not the only ones in with a chance this week. Jimmy Robertson has already won on European soil this season when he landed the European Masters. He can’t be ruled out, while Dave Gilbert remains a tournament winner in waiting. Ricky Walden and Ben Woollaston can never be written off and Kurt Maflin can be extremely dangerous on his day too.
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Betting
I’ll go with a couple of players this week. The first of them is Jack Lisowski who looks to have a smooth path into the latter stages of the competition and by then he should have built up the confidence and the form to be a real danger over the weekend. Lisowski is very much on the up and it is only a matter of time before he wins a tournament. In an ideal world we would want more than 20/1 on him but that price reflects the potential openness of his route through to the latter stages of the event. I think there is just about enough mileage in the price to back the Riga Masters finalist and International Championship semi-finalist to have a big weekend here.
Zhou Yuelong is another who should be threatening to win titles. This hasn’t been Zhou’s best campaign by any stretch but twice he’s lost to Ronnie O’Sullivan when he’s been going well and Mark Selby edged him out in a deciding frame in one of the tournaments too so he hasn’t had much luck with the draws. He is in that open top quarter this week which could become anyone’s as early as the opening afternoon. Yuelong has made major semi-finals before and maintains the game to go deep here. At 100/1 to win the tournament and 14/1 to win a quarter where Kyren Wilson might be the only form player, I’ve got to support the Chinese star here.
Tips
Back J.Lisowski to win German Masters (e/w) for a 1.5/10 stake at 21.00 with Boylesports (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back Z.Yuelong to win German Masters (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 101.00 with BetVictor (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back Z.Yuelong to win 1st Quarter for a 1/10 stake at 15.00 with Coral
Back him here:
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