There is one place to be filled in the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions tournament and we find out who secured it on Thursday when Group 3 of the competition is played with four players looking to set up a clash with Barry Hawkins.
Judd Trump is the headline act on show on Thursday as he begins a quest for a fourth title of the season already but three other tournament winners will be out to give him as tough a time as possible and halt his progress.
Judd Trump vs Baipat Siripaporn
The opening semi-final in Group 3 sees the man of the moment in Judd Trump starting out on his bid to add to his English Open, Wuhan Open and Northern Ireland Open titles this term when he meets the women’s world champion Baipat Siripaporn.
Siripaporn deserves to be in this tournament based on her women’s success but you only have to look at her results on the main tour to highlight how up against it she is here. She has played seven matches and won a grand total of seven frames in them and now she plays the best player on the season so far. This match is clearly all about Trump. If he doesn’t take any liberties here he should win this 4-0 in next to no time at all but bookmakers are all over that offering no bigger than 1/2 on that outcome occurring. I wouldn’t want to look anywhere else in truth but I’m in no rush to be betting those kind of prices so I’ll let it win if indeed it does.
Safer Gambling Week
This week is Safer Gambling Week, an initiative we are fully supportive of on this website. If you are having a problem with your gambling click the image below for help.
Shaun Murphy vs Gary Wilson
The second semi-final in this group pits the winners of four titles over the last year against each other when Shaun Murphy makes his latest bow into the Champion of Champions when he meets the Scottish Open champion Gary Wilson.
Wilson makes his tournament debut in this match which might be significant because even though he has won a title to get in here, his experience of one-table setups and being the sole focus of attention isn’t that vast and it will be interesting to see how he handles the occasion. We know Murphy will handle it. He has buckets of experience in this situation and as a showman he looks to rise to the occasion. You would have to say that a quick look through the results of the two men this season doesn’t really account to much in terms of form but Murphy won the Championship League to open the campaign up so he will still have the confidence from that and to be fair he has lost a number of deciding frames this season so he might not be playing as badly as the results would suggest. I think he is probably playing the better of the two and in the main when Wilson has lost this season it has been by more than a frame. I think there’s value in taking Murphy to win no worse than 4-2 here.
Group Betting
This is a very lopsided group when it comes to the betting. Judd Trump is obviously a very hot favourite to win the group and that is because he is near enough guaranteed to be in the final whereas Shaun Murphy has a much stiffer task to make the final. Whether he would be 3/1 to beat Trump should he make the final remains to be seen so it might be worth getting on ‘The Magician’ now if you fancy him to win the group and just hope that he sees off Wilson.
You can get big prices on Wilson and Siripaporn to win the group. I don’t mean any disrespect but we can forget the latter because even if she was to stun Trump I wouldn’t see her winning a best of 11 in this company and I don’t think Wilson has the game to beat Trump either. In truth, I expect Trump to win the group, I think Murphy is the value in the section but I’m not really in much of a rush to get involved either way.
Tips
Back S.Murphy (-1.5 frames) to beat G.Wilson for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with William Hill
Back him here:
