The winners of all the big snooker tournaments over the last 12 months head to Bolton for the next week when 16 top stars compete in the Champion of Champions, the first big invitational event of the season.
Judd Trump made the most of his invite when he won the title a year ago and he is in as the defending champion looking to make a successful defence of his crown. This is a very competitive field this year though.
Recent Winners
2021 – Judd Trump
2020 – Mark Allen
2019 – Neil Robertson
2018 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2017 – Shaun Murphy
2016 – John Higgins
2015 – Neil Robertson
2014 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2013 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
The Format
16 players have qualified for the tournament and they will all be placed into one of the four groups of four players. One group is played out on each of the first four days of the tournament with the semi-finals in the afternoon over the best of seven frames before the final of each group takes place in the evening session on the same day. That is over the best of 11 frames. The winners of each group go through to the overall semi-finals which take place over 11 frames on Friday evening and Saturday night before the winner is determined in a best of 19 frame final on Sunday.
Group 1
Judd Trump is the top seed this week and as such he will be the main draw in Group 1 which takes place on the Wednesday. The defending champion faces a competitive group if he is to make it through to the semi-final though. He will be joined by the recent Northern Ireland Open winner Mark Allen while the Championship League winner Luca Brecel is in this group too. The quartet is completed by the Welsh Open title holder Joe Perry in what could be called the Group of Death.
Group 2
Mark Selby has only got into the tournament through his world ranking but he is the highest seed in Group 2 of the competition. The fact he hasn’t won a title in the last 12 months would be an obvious negative to his chances of coming through the Monday group but this one table setup often sees the cream rising to the top. He’ll be hoping that is the case here. He is joined in this group by the other Championship League winner John Higgins, the Shootout champion Hossein Vafaei and the World Seniors winner in Lee Walker.
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Group 3
This is the group where the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan will look to win another Champion of Champions title from. The seven time champion of the world hasn’t made the final of this tournament since he last won it in 2018. That will give the other three players in the group some interest. They are UK Championship winner Zhao Xintong, Women’s World Championship winner Mink Nutcharut and the Gibraltar Open winner Robert Milkins.
Group 4
Neil Robertson is the leading light in the group which gets played out on Tuesday. The Masters and Tour Championship winner will be expected to come out of the group and into the semi-final but if he is going to do that when he is going to have to overcome the last two winners of the European Masters in Fan Zhengyi and Kyren Wilson and the most recent ITV tournament winner in the form of the British Open champion Ryan Day.
Betting
Mark Allen was good for me in Northern Ireland a couple of weeks ago and I think the 2020 Champion of Champions winner is a good bet to come through the top half of the draw and reclaim the title. He is playing some brilliant snooker right now. We saw at the British Open when he made the final that he can score as well as anyone and then we saw in Northern Ireland that he can win without his best snooker when there is a lot of pressure on him. We know from his win in this two years ago and at The Masters a couple of years prior that he gets inspired by these one table setups in decent arenas and given that he arrives here in tip top form, which the likes of Trump and Selby, two men Allen beat on his way to winning the title in Belfast, don’t, I think Allen is a good bet at 11/1.
I’ll also have a dabble on the good form of Ryan Day to continue at a much bigger price. He admittedly has it a lot tougher than Allen on the draw front as he’ll need to get the better of Neil Robertson in his group and then possibly Ronnie O’Sullivan in the semi-final if he fancies it but there is no guarantee the Rocket will fancy the job based on his comments during the Northern Ireland Open recently. Day will be buoyed by his win at the British Open and he has a decent record in these ITV events. He is now in the top 16 and looking to push on and could be overpriced at 66/1.
Tips
Back M.Allen to win Champion of Champions (e/w) for a 1.5/10 stake at 12.00 with Bet365 (1/2 1-2)
Back R.Day to win Champion of Champions (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
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