As ever the first major snooker event of a new calendar year is The Masters, which this year returns to Alexandra Palace after the pandemic forced the event to go behind closed doors in Milton Keynes last season.
Yan Bingtao certainly wasn’t complaining about that though as he took full advantage of there being no crowds to win his first Triple Crown event. He has qualified for the competition this year and will look to make a successful defence. The other leading 15 players in the world will be out to deny him though.
Recent Winners
2021 – Yan Bingtao
2020 – Stuart Bingham
2019 – Judd Trump
2018 – Mark Allen
2017 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2016 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2015 – Shaun Murphy
2014 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2013 – Mark Selby
2012 – Neil Robertson
The Format
There is no nuances to the format this week. It is a pretty simple one it has to be said. The tournament is a straight knockout right from the beginning with every match up to the final over the best of 11 frames on the one main table in the venue. The final is the best of 19 on the second Sunday of the competition with two sessions of action being used to determine who will land the second Triple Crown event of the campaign.
Top Quarter
This is a tournament where the defending champion is the number one seed so the reward for Yan Bingtao winning last year is that he is in the top quarter this year. The man Bingtao beat in the final last year in John Higgins is the other leading seed in this section. Former champion Mark Williams will be looking to win the title once again from this top quarter and the quartet of players in this part of the draw will be completely by the man who took the UK Championship by storm in the form of Zhao Xintong, who will be looking for successive Triple Crown events.
Second Quarter
The most recent tournament winner Ronnie O’Sullivan is one of the top seeds in the second quarter of the draw this week. Nobody has the record in this tournament that he has and with the arena getting bigger and bigger year on year his support only grows stronger. That is something that the English Open champion Neil Robertson will need to be wary of should the two meet in a repeat of the World Grand Prix final. The two men who will be looking to stop that from happening are the former Crucible semi-finalist Anthony McGill and the UK Championship quarter finalist Jack Lisowski.
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Third Quarter
It is the third quarter of the draw from where Judd Trump will look to put a pretty ordinary record in this tournament by his standards behind him and look to win the title for a second time. He has been flattering to deceive for a while in the bigger events so will be eager to go well here. Kyren Wilson is the man who is seeded to meet him in the quarter final. He is still looking for his first Triple Crown title but he’s a former finalist here so knows what it takes to progress. The two men who will be looking to stop both from going through are two of the last three winners of the tournament in this venue in the 2018 winner Mark Allen and the 2020 champion Stuart Bingham.
Bottom Quarter
The world champion Mark Selby is relegated to the number two seed position this week and that means he will start out a tilt at winning this title for a fourth time in the bottom quarter. He is seeded to meet the man he beat in the world final last May in Shaun Murphy in the quarter final. Two seasoned campaigners will be out to deny them that meeting though in the form of the UK Championship quarter finalist Barry Hawkins and Stephen Maguire who took out Selby in the opening round last year and gets a shot at doing it again this year.
Betting
I’ll take an outright in both halves of the draw with the top half being Mark Williams. He is known as not being the biggest practicer in the world so it might be significant that he has made comments on social media about practice drills he has been doing and that is encouraging. Williams in the top quarter which is probably the best one to be in when you consider that Bingtao has never played at this venue and Higgins’ record here is bang average. When you look through the form of Williams this season we see he won the British Open in pretty good style without ever being at his best and either side of Covid getting him he was 3-0 up on Higgins in Northern Ireland before the Scot made a comeback and he lost out in an absolute classic to Jack Lisowski at the World Grand Prix. The Welshman is performing a lot better than the results suggest and I fancy he could go deep here.
In the bottom half of the draw I’ll take the man who was the last winner here in the form of Stuart Bingham. That was Bingham’s second Triple Crown title and although he hasn’t had the best season, he is certainly appearing to find some form now. He arrives here off the back of a semi-final at the World Grand Prix where the eventual champion Ronnie O’Sullivan was too good for him and then he won a group in the Championship League last week. I don’t take much notice of that event from a form point of view although when you’ve had a quiet season and perform as well as he did there then it probably takes on a little more significance. The main thing is he got his cue arm oiled ahead of this tournament and in a half of the draw that could easily open up I think Bingham might be a touch overpriced here.
Tips
Back M.Williams to win The Masters (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back S.Bingham to win The Masters (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with Betfair (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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