The winner of the Players Championship will be determined in Telford on Sunday when the final of the second Players Series event of the campaign is played out as Mark Allen takes on Zhang Anda over the best of 19 frames.
This two session final will offer up two men who have already won a title this season to double their tally and bolster their world ranking to levels which open up much better opportunities for the rest of the campaign.
Mark Allen
Mark Allen started this week in excellent touch but he has progressively lowered his standard as he has gone along and he will hope he has found something on his day off in order to be at his best in this final. To be fair to Allen, often when he gets to a final, whether he goes into it playing well or not, he tends to come out on top these days but he is going to need to show the form of the start of the week rather than his semi-final effort.
He beat Ali Carter comfortably enough but there were a number of shots he took a lot of time over and a couple of pieces of cueing he jumped up on so there is something in his technique which he isn’t enjoying at the minute. He still looks great in the balls but his long game isn’t completely pinpoint. Allen has won his last five finals though so he is adept at getting the job done under the ultimate pressure of the week.
Zhang Anda
I think since the quarter final onwards Zhang Anda has been the best player this week. He has played like he did when he took down the International Championship earlier in the season and he wasn’t able to be beaten then, so it will be interesting to see if he can be downed here. On the face of it all three of his matches have been close on the scoreline this week. The first one actually was but he was 5-1 up on John Higgins and 4-0 up on Mark Selby so he has been more comfortable than the scores suggest.
Zhang has looked like he is going to clear the table every time he gets in this week and if that can continue for one more day then he is going to take a lot of beating in this match. To see Mark Selby come back at him in the semi-final to force a deciding frame from 4-0 down only to then completely control that final frame tells us there is nothing wrong with the Zhang temperament too so he has every right to feel good about his chances here.
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Head-to-head
These two men have met on three previous occasions and it is Mark Allen who holds a narrow 2-1 lead in their past battles. He also holds a narrow 11-10 advantage on the frame count too although Zhang Anda fans will point out that their first two meetings came in 2011 and 2019 when Zhang was nothing like the force he is now. This will be the first time that they meet in the Players Championship and in a final of any kind. It is also the first time they will have met over a two session contest so history probably doesn’t tell us too much about this one.
Betting
I think these two are going in opposite directions this week. Mark Allen flew out of the blocks but has laboured a touch the longer it has gone on whereas Zhang Anda fell over the line in the first round but has got better with every game he has played since then. Admittedly, Allen has had a day off to find some form but he will have needed to because if he starts slowly Zhang could be away and gone and this time I’m not sure he gets pegged back unlike in the English Open when he was in his first major final.
These two have already met in 2024 at the World Grand Prix and Zhang Anda won that match and I think he is playing the better snooker of the two at present. The only negative over Zhang is he didn’t finish until midnight on Saturday night in the semi-final but adrenalin is likely to counter any tiredness if he has any. Based on what we’ve seen this week, and actually for much of the season, Zhang Anda is playing the better stuff and looks the bet at 6/4.
Tips
Back Z.Anda to beat M.Allen for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with William Hill
Back him here:
