The opening match of the Tour Championship will be a repeat of the final of the previous Cazoo Series event as John Higgins takes on Ronnie O’Sullivan in the latest battle between two of the best to have ever graced the game.
That final was over the best of 19 frames, the same distance that this match will be played over, with the winner moving through to the semi-final where either world number one Judd Trump or Barry Hawkins will be waiting for them.
John Higgins
You kind of expect John Higgins to fade away at this stage of his career but each time he looks like he is plodding something happens and he comes good again, and in 2021 he has come very good again. He had an excellent run to the final of The Masters earlier in the season where he would have been disappointed not to win the tournament but then he made up for that by winning the Players Championship earlier in the month. He didn’t just win that tournament, he took the field apart in it.
The key has been this newly found technique of his where he has been getting much closer to the cue ball. He is scoring brilliantly and every part of his game was working so well in the Players Championship. It will be interesting to see what sort of form he has with him here though because he pulled out of the Gibraltar Open the week after he won and hasn’t been seen since taking O’Sullivan apart in that final.
Ronnie O’Sullivan
The world champion will warm up for his title defence in Sheffield by attempting to win this event for the second time in three years. He didn’t qualify for the tournament last year so he has never been beaten in the event which might give him some confidence to go into the week with. O’Sullivan pitched up in the WST Series last week to keep his arm juiced and that tells me that he wants to win this week as that was a nothing event for a player of his calibre.
There is the argument that O’Sullivan hasn’t been at his best this season but he has still made four finals including in the Welsh Open and the Players Championship since the turn of the year. Really the only thing he has lacked this season is a win but if that comes this week then he will begin his title defence next month in great shape. O’Sullivan has never lacked for scoring power but sometimes his long game can be in and out. He can’t afford for it to be iffy here though.
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Head to Head
These two famous foes have now met on 67 previous occasions with O’Sullivan just about still leading with 34 wins to the 30 of Higgins. They have come together for three draws in that time as well. O’Sullivan also leads on the frame count 376-363 although Higgins closed that gap nicely when he battered O’Sullivan in the final of the Players Championship last month. That was the second successive win for Higgins after he also beat O’Sullivan in The Masters too. They have met in 22 previous quarter finals where they are locked at 11-11, the last of which was their meeting in The Masters. This will be their sixth meeting over the best of 19 frames. Higgins is 3-2 ahead in their past battles.
Betting
What a way to start a brilliant tournament we have here! Two of the best in the game going at it over 19 frames and hopefully we get a fair amount of them to keep us entertained throughout the course of the day. When it comes to betting I’m a little surprised that Higgins is the outsider here given the two jobs he’s done on O’Sullivan this year but I’m wary that he hasn’t been seen since he beat the Rocket in the Players Championship final.
That puts me off him slightly so I’ll go with the same bet I took in the Players Championship final between these two which is over 3.5 centuries. We only got 13 frames in that match and yet we still saw five centuries. You would expect this one to be a little closer than that one was because O’Sullivan will have more about him and Higgins can’t possibly keep that standard up so there should be the potential for even more frames here. With that comes more century chances but even if this is one-sided these two score well enough to get us to the four century mark.
Tips
Back Over 3.5 centuries for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with William Hill
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