The second Home Nations of the snooker season event takes place this week when the English Open is played out inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes. This is a big event in its own right but it is a huge week for those chasing a place in The Masters as it is the penultimate tournament prior to the cut off for that competition.
Judd Trump beat Neil Robertson in a wonderful final to win the title for the first time here last year and he’ll be looking to retain the title, however a very strong field has made it through to the final stages so he’ll have to play well to keep his crown.
Recent Winners
2020 – Judd Trump
2019 – Mark Selby
2018 – Stuart Bingham
2017 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2016 – Liang Wenbo
The Format
These Home Nations events have been around for a while now and while the format of them hasn’t changed, the way the arenas have been put together have. There are four tables in action throughout the event, which allows us to follow the action a lot easier, and there has been a qualifying round to avoid taking the whole 128 players in the field to the main venue. Some of those qualifiers have been held over and will be played on Monday through with the main draw also beginning on Monday. The tournament is the best of seven frames up to the quarter finals which are played over the best of nine frames on Friday with the two semi-finals the best of 11 frames on the Saturday and the title will be won on the Sunday of the event over the best of 17 frames.
Top Quarter
As the defending champion and the world number one again Judd Trump is the top seed and as such he is in the top quarter as he bids to successfully defend his title. As with the Northern Ireland Open, the top 16 have had their qualifying match held over so they are all in the event still. There should have been three other top 16 players in the field but Mark Williams is absent due to his positive Covid-19 test which leaves just Stephen Maguire and Anthony McGill from the elite band here.
There are some handy players outside the top 16 in this quarter and two of them will be the first two opponents for Judd Trump in the form of Matt Selt and the British Open semi-finalist Jimmy Robertson. Other notable names include Tom Ford and Cao Yupeng, the Chinese player who is a whole lot better than his ranking. Mark King has won a Home Nations event in the past while Zhao Xintong and Chang Bingyu are capable of upsetting a few.
Second Quarter
The 2020 finalist of this competition, Neil Robertson, is the leading seed in this second quarter of the draw. His season hasn’t really got going yet but he’ll look to fire it up this week. He is in a tasty quarter which in terms of the three other top 16 players include the former world finalist Kyren Wilson and two men who haven’t started the season how they would have wanted in the form of Barry Hawkins and Stuart Bingham.
There is no shortage of talent from outside the top 16 in this quarter this week with the Northern Ireland Open semi-finalist Ricky Walden chief among them. This is a big week for Graeme Dott who is on the fringes of The Masters field and with the last man currently into that draw in Zhou Yuelong not playing this week he has the chance to make ground on his quest for Alexandra Palace. Other players who could go well are the British Open finalist Gary Wilson, Ben Woollaston and Noppon Saengkham.
Third Quarter
The former champion Ronnie O’Sullivan is the leading light in the third quarter this week. He will have a lot of attention on him as usual but perhaps even more so after the way he sacked off his German Masters qualifier. If he doesn’t fancy the job here then the Northern Ireland Open champion Mark Allen will be one of the top 16 players who will be happy to take advantage. The other two are Jack Lisowski, who you feel needs a big week, and Shaun Murphy.
There are some decent players away from the top 16 in this quarter as well with Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Ali Carter having both survived their qualifying matches while Luca Brecel will play his on Monday as he drew Mark Allen in a disastrous draw for both men. Hossein Vafaei was the beneficiary of O’Sullivan sacking off that German Masters and he is also in this section as are Anthony Hamilton and Joe O’Connor.
Bottom Quarter
The world champion Mark Selby will be looking to regain the English Open title from the bottom quarter of the draw. He will be motivated to put in a strong showing as the battle between him and Judd Trump for the world number one spot continues. He’s in a pretty tasty quarter though which includes the Northern Ireland Open finalist John Higgins, The Masters champion Yan Bingtao who was beaten by the Scot in the semi-final in Belfast, and Ding Junhui who lost his only match of the season at the German Masters qualifying.
As with the other quarters, there are some fairly big names in this quarter who aren’t ranked in the top 16 as well. They include Martin Gould, who has the talent to go deep in any tournament, Scott Donaldson, the former UK Championship semi-finalist Lu Ning, and Chris Wakelin. This is also the quarter Stephen Hendry will look to make progress from and then there is the Championship League winner Dave Gilbert so this is a loaded section of the draw.
Outright Betting
As with the Northern Ireland Open, given that we have had a qualifying round to whittle the field down I’ll take an outright in both halves of the draw rather than one for each quarter. In the top half I’m going to take a chance on Anthony McGill. McGill started the season very slowly but the qualifying events for the European tournaments might have come at a good time for him because he won all three matches he played and looked pretty good in doing it. McGill is in the same quarter as Judd Trump but the defending champion has a couple of tricky tests before the two would meet and if something happens to Trump there isn’t much else in the quarter. McGill is a confidence player and I’ll pay to see if his confidence can see him go through the week here.
In the bottom half I will take Yan Bingtao who I expected big things from at the start of the season and on the evidence of his run in Belfast he isn’t going to disappoint. Bingtao is in that nasty fourth quarter but the thing about that section is it could easily open up with big players facing each other fairly on in the event. Bingtao could easily have suffered a hangover after losing the Northern Ireland Open semi-final to John Higgins but he won all three matches in the European qualifiers which shows both his character and his form. Bingtao is more than good enough to come through the draw and he’s my second outright bet.
Quarter Betting
Much like in the Northern Ireland Open, I’ll target the second quarter for a bet in the quarter markets and just like in that tournament my selection is going to be Ricky Walden. I noted going into the Belfast competition that Walden is playing some great stuff and it took the eventual winner Mark Allen to stop him in the semi-final, but by then he had already landed the quarter punt and I’m happy to follow him again, especially as he has come out of Belfast and won his three European event qualifying matches.
Much like in the Northern Ireland event, Walden is in the quarter that Neil Robertson resides in. Walden beat the Australian 4-0 in that competition so he isn’t going to hold any fear and if he overcomes that challenge the draw really does open up with a lot of the other regular names in it not in the greatest form with the exception of Kyren Wilson but they would meet in the quarter final so we would be in a good position by then. Walden looks in good touch at the minute and I’m not convinced his good form is ready to end. I’ll take him in this quarter.
Tips
Back A.McGill to win English Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back Y.Bingtao to win English Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 29.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back R.Walden to win 2nd Quarter for a 1/10 stake at 13.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
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