The second semi-final of the Cazoo Players Championship takes place inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes on Saturday evening as two genuine class acts on the baize meet when Kyren Wilson takes on John Higgins.
We already know that Ronnie O’Sullivan is into the final on Sunday and so we will either have a repeat of the World Championship final of last year or something of the snooker version of ‘El Clasico’ to determine the champion.
Kyren Wilson
It is hard to go under the radar in this tournament but given the impressive showings from others in the event it is easy to not have noticed how well Kyren Wilson has played in this competition. He has come through two tricky looking tests for the loss of just three frames having dumped out the new Shootout winner Ryan Day 6-1 in the opening round and then in the quarter final he took care of Neil Robertson by an emphatic 6-2 scoreline.
Wilson is generally acknowledged to have a brilliant all-round game, but like most players you can tell how confident he is feeling and how well he is hitting the ball by the way he scores so it will encourage his supporters that of the 12 frames he has won he has made six 50+ breaks and three tons. When you add in his tactical nous if he continues to score on that level he is entitled to be very tough to beat in this semi-final.
John Higgins
If getting to the semi-final for the loss of three frames is impressive for Wilson, there may not be the words to describe the fact that John Higgins is yet to lose a frame in the tournament so far. He got the plum draw in the first round against Jordan Brown, who was always going to be on a comedown and there to be picked off, which Higgins did emphatically, but more appealingly he then whitewashed Mark Selby who scored just seven points in the entire match!
Higgins has been a feature of the coverage this week and we have heard all about the technical change that he has made. That he has been so open and honest with it tells us that he is very confident with where his game is at right now, and having made the final of The Masters just a month or so ago, he knows he had the tools to reach major finals. He’ll need to play well again here but looks to be hitting the ball very nicely indeed. He has made four centuries and six 50s in the 12 frames he’s won this week.
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Head to Head
This will be the fifth time that these two great players will have met and someone is going to take the lead in their overall record as it currently sits at 2-2. Higgins’ wins both came at the World Championship whereas Wilson won their first meeting and their last one, which came last season at the World Grand Prix when ‘The Warrior’ prevailed in a deciding frame classic. Higgins leads the frame count 35-28 but his two wins have been in best of 25 and 33 frame matches so you’d expect him to lead on that front. This will be their second semi-final against each other after Higgins won their previous one to make it through to the 2018 World Championship final. These two look evenly matched.
Betting
We haven’t seen many close matches this week but I think we are going to get one here. Higgins has been brilliant in this tournament, but like O’Sullivan did on Friday night, you would expect him to regress to the mean a little here, while Wilson is steadily improving and might well catch up with the way Higgins has played over the course of the week. That makes this one a 50:50 contest but I don’t want to get involved in the outcome as I’m effectively on Higgins at 5.5/1 as he was my outright pick before a ball was hit.
The bet I am happy to take in this match is over 9.5 frames. I highlighted in the head to head how their last match went the distance and I don’t think anyone would be surprised were this one to go the same way. Over 9.5 frames is odds against in this match, which might be contrived by the lack of close matches this week, however we saw the first semi-final unexpectedly go beyond this figure and this one looks to have a much stronger chance of doing so. I think we’re in for a Saturday night cracker so I’ll go over 9.5 frames here.
Tips
Back Over 9.5 frames for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
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