The opening day of the Champion of Champions on Tuesday sees Group 3 of the tournament played out in full and that means we will have a couple of very big names in action right from the start.
That is because this group features the world champion Stuart Bingham and the potential heir to his throne in Judd Trump. The popular English pair are joined by the Shanghai Masters champion Kyren Wilson and the World Cup winner Zhou Yuelong in the battle for a semi-final spot.
As with all the groups in the opening four days of this tournament there will be two matches of best of seven frames from a pre-determined draw containing the four men in that group in the afternoon session and then the winners of those matches will return in the evening session to play a best of 11 for a spot in the semi-finals on Saturday. The winner of that match will be guaranteed £25,000 so good money is on offer.
Stuart Bingham faces Yuelong in the opening match of the group. In fairness to Bingham you would have to say his season hasn’t really got going yet but he made the final here in 2013 so he has some positive memories to draw on and I suspect he isn’t far from producing the goods.
Zhou Yuelong has been hyped up as a potential star for a while and alongside Yan Bingtao he showed why when the pair sauntered to victory in the World Cup earlier in the year. He has shown in the Chinese events how good he is but he hasn’t yet done much in any of the European events so he’ll be looking to show his talents here.
This looks a good match for Bingham to me. I say that because he is used to these conditions and fully experienced in the one table environment which Yuelong isn’t yet and that could end up being the difference. If it takes the Chinese youngster a couple of frames to adjust and acclimatise Bingham could well be away and gone. I like Bingham to come through this with a bit in hand.
The second match could be an absolute cracker. It is a repeat of the recent Shanghai Masters final as Judd Trump takes on Kyren Wilson. Wilson stole that title in a deciding frame and he’ll fancy his chances here but Trump is a warm favourite.
This one could go either way but whoever wins it I do think will win the group later in the day purely because Bingham isn’t firing on all cylinders just yet. These two will be full of confidence especially having beaten the other in the first game of the day and having settled into conditions should be able to hit the ground running.
Trump is evens to win the group while Wilson is 7/1 so it could be worth a unit on the youngster in the hope he edges out Trump and gives us some top value going into the evening.
Back S.Bingham (-1.5 frames) to beat Z.Yuelong for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back K.Wilson to win Group 3 for a 1/10 stake at 8.00 with Ladbrokes
Blog snooker YTD: +99.94pts
