The first ITV event of the snooker season takes place this week when the British Open is played out inside the Centaur in Cheltenham as 80 players head to the Gloucestershire venue looking to secure a big title and a decent first prize.
That is exactly what Mark Williams did a year ago when he won the title for the second time in three seasons. The Welshman will be in Cheltenham looking to defence his crown but so many big players are in good form and will want to stop him.
Recent Winners
2023 – Mark Williams
2022 – Ryan Day
2021 – Mark Williams
The Format
The format is completely unchanged this year from last season. A qualifying round has already got rid of 48 players and will get rid of 16 more at the venue. The main draw is a random draw just like last season and the format is exactly the same. Each match up to the quarter finals is the best of seven rather than best of five from last year. The quarter finals are the best of nine before the semi-finals over the best of 11. The final will be played out on the Sunday over the best of 19 frames where the champion will walk off with £100,000.
The Favourites
Judd Trump is the big player on the tour at the minute and he is the 7/2 favourite to add a first British Open title to the Shanghai Masters and Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters crowns he has already won this season. He has drawn the horror draw of Robert Milkins in the qualifying round though and should he get through that he could face the former winner Ryan Day so those thinking Trump is an excellent thing might want to tread with a bit of caution as he will have his work cut out getting to round two of the main draw.
Ronnie O’Sullivan gave another one of his ridiculous interviews last week which suggests that he is putting the work in and will want something out of this week. Generally when he tries to deflect from his snooker that means he fancies the job but he does seem to have an issue in the bigger matches at the minute and a bunch of best of sevens might not float his boat. He does look to have a couple of comfortable draws to get deeper into the tournament though so could quickly become value at 11/2.
Neil Robertson got back in the winning enclosure last week at the English Open and he is now 7/1 to follow that up by winning the title this week. That would be a real London bus scenario though given that it has been two years prior to winning the English Open since he last won a tournament. Robertson does have the advantage of having won a qualifying match and he has drawn someone outside the top 100 in the first round proper but you would imagine after an emotion week in Brentwood the petrol tank could empty at some point this week.
Mark Selby will probably feel that he should have gone much deeper in the English Open than he did when he lost out to Ishpreet Singh Chadha in an epic quarter final and he is 11/1 to go one better than he did here last year when Mark Williams downed him in the final. Selby looks to be in decent form but it will come up again and again this week that he has never won an ITV tournament. I keep thinking that is just a coincidence but the longer it goes on the more I’m not so sure. He is only fairly priced for me anyway I think, especially as he has the competent Pang Junxu in the qualifying round.
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Main Bets
I thought Luca Brecel looked to be hitting the ball well at the English Open last week but as can be the case he lost out in a deciding frame to Pang Junxu having seen off Anthony Hamilton and I think he might be worth chancing this week. To be hitting the ball as well as he was in Brentwood, Brecel has clearly been working on his game and when he is on song he is still a danger and in an open draw where he could get a few rounds before playing anyone significant if he is going to get some much needed wins which he needs just to ease his tour card concerns for later in the season then it could be here. At 33/1 I’ll pay to see how the 2023 world champion goes.
Barry Hawkins was the other main bet that I took away from the English Open last week. He usually doesn’t show up in the early stages of a season so the fact that he has made a couple of quarter finals has to be a positive. We know that Hawkins is more than good enough to win events when he is on song and when you consider that he lost to the eventual winner in Brentwood last week he might only need the draw to be kind for him to have a really big run here. Hawkins has wins over Mark Allen and Kyren Wilson this season and you don’t beat those if you are not playing well so I think he is worth a go here too.
Outsiders
I’ll take a couple of players at big prices. Xu Si has been scoring like a dream in recent times and if he can keep that going here then there is no reason why he can’t go well if the draw remains kind to him. Xu Si took care of Stuart Bingham and Mark Williams at the Xi’an Grand Prix recently and then beat Jack Lisowski in the English Open last week before Barry Hawkins did a bit of a late night job on him but the Chinese player has 10 centuries on the season as well as four 80s and three 90s so he is in good scoring form and if the draw is kind he could go deep this week.
Oliver Lines is the other player I think is a big price this week. He has already won his qualifying match and he has someone outside the top 100 in the world in the first main draw match so he is a favourite to make the last 32 of the tournament so he only needs a couple of favourable draws from there to get into the quarter final and from there this could open right up. He is a monster price but when you consider that Elliot Slessor, Jimmy Robertson, Robbie Williams, Noppon Saengkham, Hossein Vafaei and Xiao Guodong were all semi-finalists outside the top 16 and a couple much lower in the rankings than that, this is a draw that will open up and I’ll pay to see if Lines can take advantage.
Tips
Back B.Hawkins to win British Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Unibet (1/2 1-2)
Back L.Brecel to win British Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back X.Si to win British Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 201.00 with Unibet (1/2 1-2)
Back O.Lines to win British Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 251.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)
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