At the start of the week 128 men headed to Manchester looking to win the English Open and go 25% of the way to winning the £1m bonus on offer for winning all four Home Nations events and now that opportunity is available to just two men.
At the end of Sunday it will be there for just one after stablemates Judd Trump and Liang Wenbo meet in the final of the English Open. They will do battle over the best of 17 frames for the title and the £70,000 first prize.
Judd Trump
Trump is looking for a second success in as many weeks after he claimed the title in Romania seven days ago. In this day and age back to back ranking event victories is no mean achievement so we shouldn’t take what the star potter is doing for granted.
This week Trump has overcome the likes of Martin Gould, Mark Williams, John Higgins and Barry Hawkins and in truth he hasn’t really been pushed in any of those matches such is the quality he is producing at the minute. He has scored heavily all week but just like last week it is his safety game to create his chances which is catching the eye the most.
Liang Wenbo
Wenbo is in his third full ranking event final here. He has come up short in the previous two so he will be looking for a first full ranking title here. Not many would have picked out Wenbo at the beginning of the week but he deserves to be here given how well he has played.
Wenbo has seen off the likes of Shaun Murphy, Ben Woollaston and Stuart Bingham already this week but this is his toughest test of all. That said he’s playing well as the 134 and 138 breaks he made in his semi-final testify to and if he has that scoring with him here he could yet go all the way.
Head to Head
The two men have met five times if we don’t include the Championship League and Liang Wenbo leads 3-2. Judd Trump won their most recent meeting at the World Championship earlier in the year but it was Wenbo who beat Trump in the UK Championship 10 months ago so there isn’t a lot between the two in terms of past meetings.
Betting
I’m undecided about this final I have to admit. There is part of me that things Liang Wenbo is overpriced but then the quality of snooker he has played this week makes me believe that Trump will win the match so betting on the match outcome isn’t the way forward for me.
I will take a bet for the final though and it comes in the form of the centuries market. There were three centuries when these two met in the World Championship earlier in the year and the way they are both scoring at the minute suggests we are going to see more in this final.
We saw Trump bang in three tons in the final in Romania last week while Liang has banged in five tons this week, four of them being sizeable ones too so there is plenty of potential for centuries here and given that I think it is worth chancing the over 2.5 line in this final.
Tips
Back Over 2.5 centuries for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Winner Sports
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