An entertaining week at the European Masters comes to an end on Sunday when Mark Selby and Martin Gould face off for the first title of the new season inside the bio-secure bubble of the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes.
Both men have won ranking titles before and they have both played well this week so we should be set for an excellent conclusion to what has been a very good week of snooker. It is a race to nine for the title.
Mark Selby
There have been times this week where Mark Selby hasn’t been at his best but at the same time there has been a lot of normality about how he has gone about things. We are used to seeing Selby start a week slowly but when he gets to the business end of proceedings his class shines and usually his best performance in a tournament comes in the final when a trophy is up for grabs. He’ll be hoping that trend continues here.
Selby hasn’t had it easy this week even though he has had a couple of walkovers. When he has played he’s had some challenging opponents and in the last three rounds he has had to get the better of Stuart Bingham, Ding Junhui and Shaun Murphy. He looked dead and buried when 4-1 down to Bingham but he came through and has kicked on from there. He starts this final as a worthy favourite in his current form.
Martin Gould
I don’t think we need to revisit the issues that Martin Gould bravely admitted to having in recent times but we saw at the World Championship that he was getting back to the sort of form that had him inside the top 16 for a while and which won him tournaments like the German Masters in the past. There have been further evidence of that this week as although he’s been involved in a couple of tight battles, he has scored well and is playing a pretty good tactical game too.
Gould seems like he is playing with nothing to lose at the minute. It seems as though this revival of his has taken all the pressure off him and a player who scores like he can could be very dangerous as a result. Gould has taken out John Higgins, Yan Bingtao and the world number one Judd Trump on his way to this final so he very much deserves to be here as well and if he can find his scoring touch right from the start he could take a bit of beating too.
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Head to Head
These two men have met on 10 previous occasions and it is Mark Selby who holds the advantage. He has seven wins to his name to the three of Martin Gould. That is played out in the frame totals with Selby having 44 to the 29 that Gould has won. That suggests that Selby doesn’t just win more often but he wins pretty comfortably when he does come out on top. Selby has also won their last two meetings and the only final they have played went his way too although that was a best of seven in one of the PTCs back in the day. They have only met once in a two session match and that also went the way of Selby so history is very much on his side.
Betting
I’m not going to get massively involved in this final as I don’t need to having backed Martin Gould to win the tournament outright. We have him running for us at 125/1 in this final having already secured a place at better than 60/1 so whatever happens here the week has been a very rewarding one. I can’t see this being a runaway final though because both men look in good touch and they’ve both been here before unlike last year when Zhou Yuelong was in a final for the first time and it showed.
That makes me think that over 14.5 frames is the way to play this final. Selby never gives in without a fight but Gould will be buzzing after beating Trump in the semi-final and he didn’t just win that match, he dominated it. He won 6-3 but Trump stole a couple of frames from him. We are at that stage of the season where everyone is fairly fresh mentally so really everything points towards a tight and competitive final. I’ll take the over in the total frames market.
Tips
WON – Back Over 14.5 frames for a 3/10 stake at 2.05 with William Hill
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