The void of snooker tournaments ends on Saturday when the rush through to Christmas begins with the Northern Ireland Open, the first of the Home Nations events and the first proper tournament on the calendar this season after a couple of quirky formats to open the season.
Judd Trump won this title in the very opposite of a Northern Ireland city in Milton Keynes last year but he was also the champion the last time the Waterfront Hall in Belfast staged the tournament and he’ll be looking for the four-peat this week.
Recent Winners
2020 – Judd Trump
2019 – Judd Trump
2018 – Judd Trump
2017 – Mark Williams
2016 – Mark King
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 now just three 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 Saturday through to Monday with the main draw 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 second Saturday and the title will be won on the second Sunday of the event over the best of 17 frames.
Top Quarter
Judd Trump might not be the world number one any more but he is the number one seed for this event having won the title last season and as such he has been placed in the top quarter of the draw. All of the top 16 ranked players have had their qualifying match held over to the main venue so the other elite players in this section all remain in the draw. They are the home star Mark Allen, Stephen Maguire and Zhou Yuelong, who technically sits at 17 in the rankings but with Ding Junhui not in the field this week he is seeded 16.
Some decent names outside the top 16 bit the dust in the qualifying competition with Zhao Xintong, Scott Donaldson and Alexander Ursenbacher among them but we do still have plenty of other recognisable names in this top quarter including the former UK Championship semi-finalist Lu Ning, the British Open semi-finalist Jimmy Robertson, Matthew Stevens, the Shootout champion Ryan Day and the veteran Fergal O’Brien who has done well to make it this far.
Second Quarter
Neil Robertson is the top seed in the second quarter of the draw with the Australian playing his first tournament of the season after choosing to give the Championship League and British Open a swerve. As with the top quarter, the top 16 players in this section have had their qualifying matches held over to the venue so they remain in the draw. Aside from Robertson, the other three are Shaun Murphy, Jack Lisowski and Stuart Bingham.
There are other recognisable names in the quarter from outside the top 16 who will be looking for a decent week in Belfast even though the likes of Michael Holt, Jamie Jones and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh all bit the dust in the qualifying event. They include Ricky Walden, who went well at the British Open before running into the eventual champion Mark Williams in the quarter final, Martin O’Donnell, Noppon Saengkham, Tom Ford and Chris Wakelin.
Special Offer
Sign up for a Boylesports account to get up to £25 in free bets! Perfect offer for this event! Click the image below for this great offer! New accounts only. 18+ T&Cs apply. Gamble Aware.
Third Quarter
This is the section of the draw where Ronnie O’Sullivan will look to win the title for the first time from. He was never in danger of playing in the qualifying round away from the venue so his match, like those of the other top 16 players, has been held over to the venue. He is joined in terms of the elite players in this section by Kyren Wilson, Barry Hawkins and The Masters champion Yan Bingtao, who is now the leading Chinese player in the draw with Ding Junhui not entering.
Matthew Selt, Joe Perry and Li Hang were among the fancied runners who fell victim to the qualifying round in this quarter of the draw but there is still the former champion Mark King lining up in this section as well as the likes of Robert Milkins, Xiao Guodong, Ali Carter, Ben Woollaston, Hossein Vafaei and Yuan Sijun. This actually looks like quite a competitive quarter, particularly if O’Sullivan isn’t at the races this early in the season.
Bottom Quarter
The world champion and world number one Mark Selby is the headliner in the bottom quarter of the draw. He won’t be appearing at any qualifying venues this season so his match was always being held over to the main draw. The other three top 16 players have also suffered that fate with John Higgins the biggest danger to the world champion from a ranking point of view. The British Open winner Mark Williams is also in this quarter as is the former world semi-finalist Anthony McGill.
Dominic Dale, Jimmy White and Ken Doherty were all hoping to be at the venue in this section of the draw but they were all beaten at the qualifying venue. We are still left with the dangerous Cao Yupeng, British Open finalist Gary Wilson, Welsh Open champion Jordan Brown, the Championship League winner Dave Gilbert, Martin Gould and Luca Brecel in what looks a very tasty final quarter of the draw bracket.
Outright Betting
Usually I would take a player in each quarter for these Home Nations events with 32 players usually in each but the fact the qualifying draw has whittled that down means we can focus on more select outright bets this season. Looking into this tournament, when you consider that Judd Trump and Mark Selby have been off playing pool, Neil Robertson hasn’t played since the World Championship and Ronnie O’Sullivan has only played a day of Championship League action, we might get a winner outside the big four here so my first bet is on the home man Mark Allen, who would dearly love to win his home tournament. He hasn’t had the best history in this tournament but it has often come after he has gone deep in a Chinese event or another tournament and his preparation has been affected. That isn’t the case here and he arrives here having made the final of the Championship League earlier in the season where he was scoring centuries for fun. Things didn’t go as well at the British Open but that awkward opening draw contributed a lot to that. This feels like Allen’s best chance to go deep here and I expect him to go very well.
The other player I like to make a decent impression here is Barry Hawkins. Hawkins is a renowned slow starter to a season but everyone is in the same boat here really with this campaign yet to really get going. The one thing he will not have been short of is practice time and with a run of tournaments on the horizon I expect him to have been taking advantage of that. Although he is likely to be rusty here, he has a couple of early draws which could have been a lot tougher which should help him get into the tournament and with question marks over the shape of O’Sullivan, Hawkins might be the one to take advantage.
Quarter Betting
I’ll pick out one in the quarter betting. I don’t really want to go anywhere near that bottom quarter which looks like it might be a tournament in itself with not just four great top 16 players in it but a couple of very dangerous outsiders as well. That is in stark contrast to the second quarter where there are question marks over Neil Robertson who hasn’t had a competitive hit in five months and Shaun Murphy who might also be a little undercooked after running into Mark Selby in the opening round of the British Open.
That makes me want to look a little further down the second quarter market where I like the form of Ricky Walden at a decent price. Walden made the quarter final of the British Open where he should really have got rid of the eventual champion Mark Williams but he bounced back from that disappointment in winning his qualifying match for the first two Home Nations events for the loss of one frame. He went out in Scottish Open qualifying but to be fair Steven Hallworth made four 50s in a 4-3 win so it wasn’t like Walden was playing badly. I’ve heard it said a few times this year that Walden is playing pain free now and when you consider he made the last 16 of the UK Championship last season and the quarter final of the Scottish Open where Mark Selby denied him in a deciding frame, there are signs of big things from the Englishman once again. At 16/1 I’ll pay to see if he escapes an open looking quarter this week.
Tips
Back M.Allen to win Northern Ireland Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 19.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
Back B.Hawkins to win Northern Ireland Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
Back them here:
Back R.Walden to win 2nd Quarter for a 1/10 stake at 17.00 with BetVictor
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2021
