The biggest ranking event title of the snooker season so far will be won on Sunday when Mark Allen meets Ryan Day in the final of the British Open, bringing a wonderful week of snooker inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes to a close.
These two have made it through to the final in very different ways but that doesn’t matter now and they will battle it out over the best of 19 frames for the £100,000 first prize and the many other benefits that come with winning.
Mark Allen
Mark Allen has had to come through a tough draw to make it into the final but he has been able to do that because he has played some wonderful snooker all week. Prior to the semi-final, Allen had played four matches this week and you couldn’t really suggest he had an easy opponent in any of them. The first two were Li Hang and Gary Wilson who can be competitive on their day and then in the last 16 and quarter final he had to come past Judd Trump and Mark Selby.
Allen had an easier draw in the semi-final against Noppon Saengkham and took full advantage of it, overcoming the Thai 6-1 having established a 5-0 lead. Allen has scored brilliantly well all week and looks every bit the winner of the tournament in waiting. He hasn’t had to play much safety over the course of the event but we know he has top level stuff in his locker in that department as well so unless he drops off considerably he is a huge favourite in this final.
Ryan Day
I think it is fair to say that Ryan Day hasn’t had the same level of draw that Mark Allen has had. He hasn’t played anyone in the top 20 in the world rankings this week and his last two victims – Yuan Sijun and Robbie Williams – were both ranked outside the top 60 in the world. It isn’t his problem that the draw has been kind to him, that is largely the beauty of the random draw format, but given how he has played it is probably a good thing he hasn’t had a tough draw.
It has been a tough watch for Day fans this week. He has shown bits of scoring here and there but nothing like the sustained levels we are used to seeing from him. He missed a lot of balls in the semi-final and had he been playing anyone of any real significance he would have been dumped out of the tournament. He wasn’t beaten though and he lives to fight another day. The positive from winning without playing well is he has another chance to find his best stuff and because nobody expects him to win he can play with a bit of freedom.
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Head-to-head
These two are pretty familiar foes having met on 18 previous occasions. This will be their first meeting in five years though. It is Allen who has the lead in their past battles. He has 12 wins to the six of Day and that is reflected in the frames too with Allen up 79-64 in that. This will be the second time they have met in a final although the other one they played was a European Tour one so this is their biggest meeting in terms of a final. This will be just their third multi-session match. Allen won their previous ones at the 2009 World Championship 13-11 and 10-3 in 2015 so history is very much on the side of the higher ranked player here.
Betting
History might be on the side of Mark Allen but Ryan Day has nothing to lose here and I can’t believe he’ll play as badly as he did in his semi-final win over Robbie Williams on Saturday evening. I think there were a couple of contributing factors to that performance. The first one being that it was his first match on the main table and that showed because his cue ball was all over the place. The other one being that he was an emphatic favourite with little to gain and a lot to lose.
Those circumstances are not the case in this final. Day can play with a bit of freedom. The £45k he has earned has him inside the top 20 in the world rankings and will get him into the World Grand Prix and with the potential to build so the pressure is all on Allen here. I wouldn’t say that I don’t expect him to handle the pressure because he is very good under the pump but I think we’ll see the best of Day in this final and if we do then he is good enough to stay within three frames of Allen, and go even better if the Northern Irishman does feel the heat a touch.
Tips
Back R.Day (+3.5 frames) to beat M.Allen for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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