The qualifying competition for the UK Championship is up and running but the snooker attention will be on Bolton throughout Sunday when Mark Williams takes on Xiao Guodong in the final of the Champion of Champions.
These two men are appearing in the final of the competition for the first time so we are guaranteed a new winner of the title and that makes for an exciting proposition. They have been the two best players on the week so we should be in for a decent final.
Xiao Guodong
A wonderful few weeks for Xiao Guodong has continued in Bolton this week and he is now one win away from landing a second major title in his career, barely a month after he collected the first one at the Wuhan Open. He has brought his form from that tournament and the International Championship where he was a semi-finalist to Bolton with him this week and if confidence is the deciding factor in big finals then the Chinese ace will be tough to beat.
It certainly got him past Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Selby in his group. He was 3-0 down to both of those but had the belief and confidence to turn those matches around. He played from the front against Mark Allen in the semi-final but was no less impressive. He’ll probably need his very best snooker to come out on top here but Xiao has shown he can handle pressure situations regularly over the last month and he is entitled to be dangerous here.
Mark Williams
We keep on hearing how Mark Williams is in the twilight of his career and that his best days are behind him but then we see him win the Tour Championship in incredible fashion earlier in the year and be a ball away from winning the Saudi Masters a couple of months ago and now he is here in another major final. Williams hadn’t ever won a match at the Champion of Champions when he arrived in Bolton this week but now he is favourite for the title.
Much of that is down to the way he has put significant head-to-head records behind him to see off the world champion Kyren Wilson and the English Open winner Neil Robertson in the last two rounds. He has scored really well this week and his safety has been very good. Williams is probably true to form when he says his best is behind him in terms of regularly competing for titles but he still knows how to get the job done when he gets this far in a tournament as two titles in the last 13 months would suggest. He’s a worthy favourite in this final.
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Head-to-head
Xiao Guodong is so new to the business end of tournaments that these two men have only ever met twice in proper competitions and Mark Williams has won both of those. They were both over the best of seven frames, in the third round of a PTC event in 2010 which he won 4-2 and then at the English Open last year where the Welsh star won in a deciding frame so this will be the first time they have met in a final, in the Champion of Champions and in a multi-session match of any kind so we probably can’t take too much from history.
Betting
I think this will be a really good final but I do think that Xiao Guodong will need Mark Williams to drop his level a little. Had Williams gone the distance in a humdinger of a semi-final and then had to back that up at his age you could make a case for that happening but the truth is he didn’t and I don’t think that win over Neil Robertson will have taken much out of him at all. This hasn’t exactly been a taxing week anyway so I think Guodong could be in a bit of bother here.
That doesn’t mean I don’t think he’ll give it his all and make this a competitive final at times because I think he will but Williams just has him covered in all departments of the game. He is the better safety player, better potter and better scorer and in these high pressure situations, mentally he is something else as well. Guodong has played really well for a month or more now but a Williams in flowing form might just be a step too far for him. I like the Welshman here.
Tips
Back M.Williams to beat X.Guodong for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with William Hill
Back him here:
