The second Home Nations event of the season will be won inside the Waterfront Hall in Belfast on Sunday when the top two players in the world battle it out for the Alex Higgins Trophy in the final of the Northern Ireland Open when Judd Trump meets Kyren Wilson.
We have the defending champion up against the world champion in what should be a pulsating final, the second time this season that they have faced off for a trophy after they did battle in the Xi’an Grand Prix final earlier in the campaign.
Judd Trump
Judd Trump arrived in Belfast as the holder of the title and with a very good reputation in the competition and he is a win away from enhancing that. Trump has been the best player in the game over the last couple of seasons and were he to win this final he would seal an eighth title in that span and successive Northern Ireland Open successes. He’ll go into the final as the favourite to win especially after a cruise of a semi-final.
He beat Elliot Slessor 6-0 in that match with his opponent never really getting going but the good thing for Trump is that he has been tested this week because he had to overcome the likes of Barry Hawkins and Shaun Murphy to reach that semi-final. Sometimes this season we have seen Trump use his C and D game to make it into the latter stages of the tournament but that hasn’t been the case here. He has looked on it and you sense he is bang up for this final.
Kyren Wilson
The world champion Kyren Wilson will incredibly go in search of a first Home Nations title in this final. He has been to a couple of finals in the past but failed to get the job done so he’ll be looking to get a rather weird monkey off his back here. He has been in tournament winning form in the last few months having won the World Championship and then followed it up with the Xi’an Grand Prix earlier in the season so his new tag as world champion doesn’t appear to be a burden on him.
Wilson hasn’t had the toughest route through to this final but he did need to take care of Mark Williams in the quarter final and he did that with the minimum of fuss. I think Wilson has looked decent in the main in this tournament but there have been a few misses which have come out of the blue and you wouldn’t think he’ll be able to get away with those in this final. He has recent history of beating Trump in a final though so that should serve him well.
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Head-to-head
If we take the Championship League and the Shootout out of the equation, these two men have met on 22 previous occasions with Judd Trump winning 13 of them to the nine of Wilson. Trump leads 104-89 which suggests that his wins are generally by a fairly comfortable margin. This will be the fourth time they have met in a final and it is a bit of a surprise that Wilson has a 2-1 advantage in that regard and that includes their Xi’an Grand Prix final from a couple of months ago. This will be their first meeting in the Northern Ireland Open and a first battle over the best of 17 frames so how much we can take from history remains to be seen.
Betting
I’m a little surprised that the odds for this final are as varied as they are between the two men. I wouldn’t say that they are level as players but I’m not sure there is as much between them as 4/9 and 13/8 suggests and so with that in mind it is hard to ignore Kyren Wilson here. He has the advantage of knowing that he won the Xi’an Grand Prix final between the two a couple of months ago and you get the feeling he is really enjoying his snooker as the world champion.
If Judd Trump plays well then he usually wins but again if he and Wilson both play well there isn’t a huge amount between these two players. I suspect we are going to get a close and high quality final here which further makes the price on Wilson look like decent value. This feels like a match which is going to end 9-7 or 9-8 either way so in what could be a coin flip of a decider rather than take the 8/11 on over 14.5 frames I’ll play the bigger price on a Wilson win.
Tips
Back K.Wilson to beat J.Trump for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Boylesports
Back him here:
