The third leg of the Home Nations series takes place in Edinburgh this week when the Scottish Open is played out inside the Meadowbank Sports Centre when 64 of the leading players in the world go in search of the final title of 2024.
Gary Wilson successfully defended the title here a year ago and he will be looking to be a rare player to win the same tournament for three years in succession. There are plenty of players in decent form looking to stop him.
Recent Winners
2023 – Gary Wilson
2022 – Gary Wilson
2021 – Luca Brecel
2020 – Mark Selby
2019 – Mark Selby
2018 – Mark Allen
2017 – Neil Robertson
2016 – Marco Fu
The Format
The format for the Home Nations events has changed this year. The top 32 players in the rankings have bypassed the qualifying competition and will face one of the qualifiers in the first round of the event. The draw is in order of the rankings and is a straight knockout. The first round through to the last 16 are the best of seven frames while the quarter finals take place on Friday over the best of nine frames. The two semi-finals are the best of 11 frames and the Alex Higgins Trophy will be won over the best of 17 frames in the Sunday final. The winner pockets £100,000.
Top Quarter
Gary Wilson is the defending champion and he is the number one seed as a result of that and that means he is right at the top of the draw bracket. There were due to be three other top 16 players in the field when the draw was made in this quarter but Mark Williams has withdrawn from the event which leaves two and even one of those has fallen out of the elite bracket since the draw was made public. That is Neil Robertson which leaves Shaun Murphy has the only other current top 16 player in the top quarter.
There are plenty of players who will be eyeing up a big week to get into the elite band heading into 2024. Tom Ford has just won the Snooker Shootout and he’ll be looking to use that as a springboard to win this tournament from the top quarter final Stuart Bingham has been having a good 2024 which he’ll hope to round off in style. Hossein Vafaei is another player who will be wanting a decent week here while Joe O’Connor, Lyu Haotian, Fan Zhengyi and Jimmy Robertson are others who could go well too.
Second Quarter
The former world number one Mark Allen is the highest ranked player in the second quarter of the draw. If the draw goes to the rankings and the seedings then the Northern Irishman will run into Mark Selby in what would be a tasty quarter final but two other players in the top 16 will be out to stop that from happening. They are the Wuhan Open finalist Si Jiahui and the man who began the year by making The Masters final in Ali Carter.
There are no shortage of household names of those outside the top 16 in this quarter of the draw too. Jack Lisowski comes here off the back of a good run at the UK Championship and the same can be said of David Gilbert. Noppon Saengkham has gone well in Home Nations events in the past too while the likes of Ricky Walden, Ryan Day and Anthony McGill will be looking for the sort of week which could turn their season around.
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Third Quarter
Judd Trump was due to be the highest seed in this quarter of the draw but he has pulled out of it which might well be music to the ears of Ronnie O’Sullivan who is now the highest ranked player in the third quarter, assuming that he shows up which certainly isn’t a guarantee either. Two other top 16 players are in the section and they are Zhang Anda who probably needs a decent week because he only has around 10 months until his International Championship win comes off of his ranking. The home star John Higgins is the other in this section.
We are not short of players who are household names in this section of the draw either. Barry Hawkins made it into the top 16 with his run to the UK Championship final and he’ll look to go well here. Chris Wakelin has also made it into the top 16 since the qualifying event for this tournament took place while Wu Yize made the English Open final and will be looking to go one better here. Pang Junxu, Scott Donaldson and Stan Moody are others to look out for in this quarter.
Bottom Quarter
As ever when he isn’t the defending champion, the world champion Kyren Wilson sits in the bottom quarter of the draw and he will look to make his way to a second Home Nations win of the season from here. He is scheduled to run into Luca Brecel in the quarter final of the tournament but having won the International Championship, Ding Junhui will be one of the other top 16 players out to stop that from happening. The World Championship finalist Jak Jones is the other who was in the top 16 when the draw began who is in this quarter.
Xiao Guodong has already won the Wuhan Open this season and he is in this quarter of the draw looking for the results which will get him back in the top 16. Zhou Yuelong is another Chinese player in this section but all eyes will be on the likes of Robert Milkins and the home star Stephen Maguire to see if they can do some damage. Yuan Sijun, Jackson Page and Xu Si are some younger players who can go well here while Jamie Jones will be looking to go strong.
Betting
I always think that this tournament is one which is the most open for a couple of reasons. I always wonder a week or so after the UK Championship and with The Masters field already determined and Christmas on the horizon just how committed the big names are and the fact that arguably the two best players of the season in Judd Trump and Mark Williams have pulled out that seems to be the case here. That makes me think that Zhou Yuelong might be worth a bet here. He was a semi-finalist here last year when he thought he had that match won only to see Gary Wilson get the snookers he needed. This hasn’t been a great season for Zhou but he showed a bit at the Shootout to suggest he is coming into some form and he is fresh and motivated to go well. The Chinese star is more than good enough to negotiate a draw which could easily open up given that Luca Brecel is the main seed in his half of the draw. Zhou has three times been to the final of a ranking event and at 50/1 I’ll pay to see how he goes here.
Tom Ford has just won the Shootout and he is so talented that it wouldn’t be the biggest surprise in the world if he goes on a bit of a run of winning events now. That has happened in the past with the likes of Barry Hawkins, Michael White and others while the likes of Chris Wakelin has won the Shootout and made finals since then. Ford was clearly emotional at winning his first ranking tournament and rightly so but Mark Allen was going nowhere last season until he won that and went on to add further titles to his CV in the months after. Ford is in the top quarter where Mark Williams has already pulled out and Gary Wilson is a vulnerable top seed with his form nothing special. There are the likes of Neil Robertson and Shaun Murphy to beat but Ford was cueing well at the Shootout and if the confidence of winning that carries over to here he could easily go well in Scotland.
Tips
Back Z.Yuelong to win Scottish Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 51.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)
Back T.Ford to win Scottish Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 126.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)
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