A couple of days after the qualifying for it ended, the English Open, the first leg of the Home Nations series gets underway in Brentwood on Monday when 64 players will begin the main draw looking for the enhanced first prize.
Judd Trump won this tournament in a run of competition wins last season and he is scheduled to be in action to look to make a successful defence of the title despite winning in Saudi Arabia recently. Some top players will be out to stop him.
Recent Winners
2023 – Judd Trump
2022 – Mark Selby
2021 – Neil Robertson
2020 – Judd Trump
2019 – Mark Selby
2018 – Stuart Bingham
2017 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2016 – Liang Wenbo
The Format
The format for the Home Nations events has changed this year. The top 32 players in the rankings have bypassed the qualifying competition and will face one of the qualifiers in the first round of the event. The draw is in order of the rankings and is a straight knockout. The first round through to the last 16 are the best of seven frames while the quarter finals take place on Friday over the best of nine frames. The two semi-finals are the best of 11 frames and the Steve Davis Trophy will be won over the best of 17 frames in the Sunday final. The winner pockets £100,000.
Top Quarter
As the defending champion, Judd Trump is the number one seed this week and he is the star name in the top quarter as a result of that. If this section goes to the rankings then we could have a repeat of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters final in the quarter final as Mark Williams would take on Trump. There are six other players who automatically qualified for the tournament looking to stop that from happening though. They are The Masters finalist Ali Carter, Ryan Day, Robert Milkins, Matthew Selt, Stuart Bingham and Noppon Saengkham.
There will be eight qualifiers in this quarter of the draw as well. Liu Hongyu made a breakthrough in this tournament last season while Fan Zhengyi made a maximum in qualifying last week. Wu Yize and Ben Woollaston have all come through as well while Zak Surety, Ian Burns and Oliver Lines all had to win two matches last week to make it into the main draw. There is one held over qualifying match in this quarter which sees Ricky Walden taking on Mink Nutcharut.
Second Quarter
Ronnie O’Sullivan is the highest ranked player in the second quarter as he looks to get his hands on this trophy for the first time in seven years. He hasn’t always shown interest in these Home Nations events even though he always enters them now but having failed to win a title yet this term you wonder if he’ll have more interest here. He is on a collision course with Mark Selby in the last eight but world finalist Jak Jones and Tom Ford will be out to stop that from happening, as will Joe O’Connor, Si Jiahui, Hossein Vafaei and Stephen Maguire.
This section was wide open in qualifying and only three of the players who entered in the second qualifying round made it through. They are Aaron Hill, Matthew Stevens and He Guoqiang. Four players won two matches to get to this stage. They are the Indian player Ishpreet Singh Chadha, Andrew Pagett, Jiang Jun and the Latvian youngster Artemijs Zizins. Yuan Sijun will be favourite to make the main draw when he faces Bulcsu Revesz in the held over qualifying match.
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Third Quarter
The former world number one Mark Allen is the highest seed in the third quarter. He hasn’t started the season how he would have wanted so he’ll be looking for some confidence boosting wins here. He is seeded to face off against the 2023 world champion Luca Brecel in the quarter final but the finalist of this event last year, Zhang Anda, and legendary figure John Higgins will be out to stop that happening, as will Lyu Haotian, Dave Gilbert, Chris Wakelin and Pang Junxu.
This was another section where some of the players who entered the tournament in the first of the qualifying rounds have made it through. Long Zehuang, Andrew Higginson and Michael Holt all came through two matches to get while Joe Perry, Mark Davis, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh and Anthony Hamilton all picked up the one win they were favoured to do to get this far. The heldover qualifying match in this quarter sees Dominic Dale looking to come through against Liam Davies.
Bottom Quarter
This is the quarter of the draw where the world champion Kyren Wilson will look to get his hands on the Steve Davis Trophy for the first time from. If he makes it to the quarter final and the section runs to the rankings he will meet Shaun Murphy in the last eight but Barry Hawkins and Gary Wilson will out to stop that from happening. The other four automatic qualifiers in this quarter of the draw are Jack Lisowski, Zhou Yuelong, Neil Robertson and Anthony McGill so this is a bit of a loaded quarter.
That is even more the case when you consider that only one player who entered qualifying in the first round made it through in this quarter. That was Ross Muir. The other players to come through last week were David Grace, Jimmy Robertson, Xu Si, Jamie Jones, the talented Welsh player Jackson Page and Jamie Clarke. There is still one more qualifying match to be played and that sees Xiao Guodong looking to pick up the win he is seeded to do when he faces Mitchell Mann for a spot in the main draw.
Betting
I feel like I have to back someone in the third quarter for the tournament this week because Mark Allen and Luca Brecel are the two players in the top eight who have made the worst starts to the season so this section could easily open up for someone. Zhang Anda made the final here a year ago and since then has gone on and won a tournament and I’ve got to think he is drawn beautifully for another big crack at this title. The tougher part of his quarter looks to be the other half to the one he is in so there appears no reason why he can’t make the quarter final here, allowing for the fact that the best of sevens can through up surprise results. Zhang played well in Saudi Arabia recently. He beat Ben Woollaston 5-0 with four tons and should have beaten Ronnie O’Sullivan and that form should take him a long way in this draw.
I’m not massively keen on betting in the top half of the draw with the likes of Judd Trump, Mark Williams, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Selby and Ali Carter in it but I couldn’t resist a nibble of the 125/1 on Fan Zhengyi to have a big run. He is a ranking event winner so we know that he has it in him to go all the way in a tournament of this kind and he’ll be buzzing after making his first competitive maximum in the qualifying competition. He will need this draw to open up but you don’t make 147s if you are not hitting the ball well so at a bit of a daft price I’ll pay to see what he has got this week.
Tips
Back Z.Anda to win English Open (e/w) for a 1.5/10 stake at 23.00 with Sky Bet (1/2 1-2)
Back F.Zhengyi to win English Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
