Mark Allen will find out who he will meet in the Players Championship final when Zhang Anda takes on Mark Selby in the second semi-final of the middle of the three Players Series competitions on Saturday evening.
Zhang is looking to add this title to the International Championship that he won earlier in the season while Selby will be looking to make just a second final of the campaign and hopes that will lead him to his first trophy of it.
Zhang Anda
The Zhang Anda story is a really remarkable one because he was going nowhere in the game until around five months ago and since then he has turned himself into one of the best players in the world. He was secured of his spot at the Tour Championship prior to this event, and he will be one of the leading seeds when he gets there, which shows how good his season has been, but he has found his better form again this week.
He had to come through a tough opening game against Noppon Saengkham but once he had come through that he was all over John Higgins in the quarter final where he played really well to get 5-1 up. He kind of fell over the line a little in that one but given the regard he holds Higgins in that can probably be accepted. The one thing Zhang did do in that match was look like he was going to clear up every time he was in the balls.
Mark Selby
Whenever we get this far into a season without Mark Selby winning a title you always wonder where his game is at but there has certainly been no signs of it being in a slump so far in this tournament. He came from behind to beat Barry Hawkins in the opening game, getting better the longer it went on, and then produced that incredible 6-0 whitewash of Ronnie O’Sullivan in the quarter final so he should be full of confidence.
I’m sure he’ll be reminded that he has never won a tournament on ITV and that is something he’ll be looking to put right over the course of the remainder of the weekend. The one thing we know about Selby is when he is in good order he can beat anyone and generally when he is on song the longer he goes in a tournament the better he gets. Selby has scored well in this tournament. He has had five breaks over 50 in both of his matches, which is a good sign for him.
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Head-to-head
These two men have met on five previous occasions and Mark Selby has won the lot. He has been so dominant in those games that he also leads the frame count 23-8. The one positive for Zhang Anda is four of those were back in 2016 or earlier and their only meeting in recent times when to a deciding frame at the WST Classic last season. This is the first time they will have met in a semi-final but they have met over the best of 11 frames. That was at the 2016 UK Championship where Selby won 6-1. History is on the side of the Jester.
Betting
History might well be siding with Mark Selby in this match but I think this will be a lot closer than all of those earlier meetings. I won’t go as far as to say that Zhang Anda will win this match but the fact he has wins over O’Sullivan, Higgins, Trump, Allen and Williams this season tells me that he doesn’t fear anyone so he is going to lay down a decent challenge to Selby in this game. Whether he is good enough to beat Selby in good form remains to be seen though.
Both of these men look in good order to me so whoever wins this one I do expect to see a close contest and one which can have over 9.5 frames. They have both scored well in this tournament which shows a sign of confidence and while the early meetings between the two were all heavily in favour of Selby, the gap between the two since then has reduced, as highlighted by the fact that their match last year went to a deciding frame. However this ends I like the score to be at least 6-4 either way here.
Tips
Back Over 9.5 frames for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with Betfair
