The second leg of the Players Series tournaments takes place this week when the 16 leading money earners in ranking events in this campaign head to Telford for the Players Championship with spots at the Tour Championship on the line.
Mark Allen won this tournament a year ago and he has just about made it back in the field to have a crack at making a successful defence of the title but there are 15 other players who have had good seasons who will be out to stop him.
Recent Winners
2024 – Mark Allen
2023 – Shaun Murphy
2022 – Neil Robertson
2021 – John Higgins
2020 – Judd Trump
2019 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2018 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2017 – Judd Trump
2016 – Mark Allen
2015 – Joe Perry
The Format
One of the attractions of this tournament is that it is a long format right throughout, and after the first round we are in a one table arena. The first round through to the semi-finals are the best of 11 frames and then the champion will be determined on Sunday over the course of two sessions and the best of 19 frames. The top 16 on the one-year list have qualified for the tournament and have been placed in the draw by their ranking on that list.
Top Quarter
Judd Trump has been the best player of the season so far and despite him fluffing his lines in the World Open a little, he is the top seed in the tournament this week and the man at the top of the draw bracket as a result of that. The man Trump beat in the UK Championship final, Barry Hawkins, is the next highest seed in the top quarter. The problem for Hawkins is that he has a clash with The Masters champion Shaun Murphy in the opening round. This is a big week for Murphy has he still needs to secure his qualification for the World Championship. The Scottish Open winner Lei Peifan can still reach the Crucible by skipping the qualifiers but he’ll need to go close to winning the title to do that.
Second Quarter
John Higgins has won the fourth most money in ranking events this season and as a result of that he is the leading seed in the second quarter of the draw. Higgins is a previous winner of this event and if he can win this again he’ll go into the Tour Championship as the number three seed. Xiao Guodong is the next highest seed in the second part of the draw and he’ll be looking for his first Players Series title of his career. Wu Yize has been to two finals this year and if he can make it a third here then he would put himself in with a chance of qualifying automatically for the World Championship while Chris Wakelin is the other player in this part of the draw.
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Third Quarter
The winner of the World Grand Prix, the first leg of the Players Series events, Neil Robertson, has made his way to the third seed for this tournament and he is the leading light in the third quarter as a result of that. The British Open and Welsh Open champion Mark Selby is the other main seed in this quarter and were the two to meet it would set up a fascinating quarter final. Si Jiahui is making his debut in the tournament this week and he’ll be looking to find some form else he won’t be making the Tour Championship. Stuart Bingham earned his spot in the tournament with a run to the final of the World Grand Prix and he’ll look to get immediate revenge when he takes on Robertson in the first round.
Bottom Quarter
The world champion Kyren Wilson did enough good work in the earlier part of the tournament to land himself in this event as the number two seed so he knows he will be at the Tour Championship too to continue to prepare for his World Championship title defence. Mark Williams is the other main seed in this quarter but he hasn’t shown much in the way of form in 2025 so that will interest the other two players. Ding Junhui beat Williams at The Masters and the pair meet in the first round here too with the International Championship winner in this part of the draw while the defending champion Mark Allen will begin his title defence from this quarter as well.
Betting
The bottom quarter might look full of star names but there isn’t a lot of immediately recent form in there and that makes me think that we might get a surprise semi-finalist from it and if we do then Ding Junhui might well be the man. The negative is that he looked to throw the towel in quite quickly in the opening round of the World Grand Prix but Mark Williams, his first round opponent, hasn’t played well for a while so I would be surprised if Ding can’t get the better of him.
Ding has a winning record against Mark Allen should he meet him in the quarter final and he is only 8-7 down to Kyren Wilson should that be the match in the last eight so there is nothing in the head-to-head record that should worry the Chinese star. The one thing we know about Ding is when he gets his teeth into a tournament he generally rides it out and we saw more evidence of that when he won the International Championship. At 14/1 I think he’s the value when weighed up with the draw this week.
Tips
Back D.Junhui to win Players Championship (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 15.00 with Boylesports (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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