32 men arrived at the Crucible Theatre with the aim of winning the World Championship but only two men still have that dream intact. They are Mark Selby and John Higgins and they will battle it out in the final over the best of 35 frames on Sunday and Monday to determine the champion and the winner of a cool £375,000.
These two men have been the standout players in their respective halves of the draw and their styles should blend into a cracking final which should contain no shortage of quality and no lack of drama either.
Mark Selby
The route to the final for the defending champion has been a relative smooth one with the exception of the semi-final showdown against Ding. He cruised through the early rounds and produced some vintage quality along the way too. His win over Marco Fu was particularly appealing to the eye.
Selby is a tough player. He can score with the best of them but the second the balls go scrappy he rolls his sleeves up and gets stuck in. It will be interesting to see how many safety exchanges he can dominate in this match. He might need to have his scoring boots on to come through and successfully defend the title.
John Higgins
Earlier in the season John Higgins would have gone into the tournament as one of the favourites to win the event. He still came here with every chance and now he has a great chance courtesy of coming through the draw nicely. He hasn’t really been extended in a match yet which is testament to his quality because he hasn’t been anywhere near his best either.
Higgins is such a gritty campaigner who can get by on a second or third string game but he will know he is unlikely to beat Selby with that sort of game so we should look for him to show a distinct improvement in the scoring side of the match. He can score as well as anyone so he just needs to bring that out.
Head to Head
Away from the Championship League these two have met on 14 occasions in the past with Selby enjoying a cosy 9-5 lead but when you look at their matches in the World Championship it is Higgins who has the better of things. He leads 3-1 at the Crucible with his biggest win coming in the 2007 final which he won 18-13.
[the_ad_group id=”3624″]
Betting
Heading into the semi-finals I thought Ding would beat Higgins in this final but John Higgins would beat Mark Selby. Higgins’ semi-final performance has put doubts in my mind though and I must admit I’m not as convinced by that theory now. I’m going to watch the first two sessions and see how they develop before getting stuck into the winner.
I will go with one in this final before the off though. It comes in the total frames line where a 30.5 line looks a touch on the low side. That means we need this one to finish 18-13 or closer either way which I don’t think is necessarily asking too much. Both men scrap and fight and raise it under pressure so it is hard to see how this one won’t be relatively close.
Tips
WON – Back Over 30.5 frames for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Coral
Back it here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2017
