The Tour Championship comes to a close on Friday when Stephen Maguire faces Mark Allen in the final of the penultimate event of the season at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes. After this match is completed all that will be left in the snooker campaign is the World Championship.
Maguire is not just battling it out for the Tour Championship title, but the Coral Series Trophy as well, meaning a victory here would be worth a whopping £250.000 and the ultimate confidence boost. Allen will be looking for a tournament win to take to Sheffield with him so this one is nicely set up.
The Format
There are only seven matches in this tournament with the quarter finals and semi-finals being played over two sessions of action and the best-of-17 frames. The final was due to be the only match of the season outside of the World Championship to be the best-of-25 frames with the winner being crowned over three sessions, however the social distancing and health measures that are in place mean that the final on Friday will just be the best of 19 frames.
Where to watch
The entire match can be watched live on ITV4 in the UK. The coverage for the first session begins at 1.20pm and then the second session gets underway at 6.50pm.
Stephen Maguire
We have seen both sides to the game of Stephen Maguire this week. We saw the heavy scoring, confident side in his opening win against Neil Robertson to kick off the week and then in his semi-final victory we saw the battling elements to him when he wasn’t at his best but fought hard to see off Judd Trump. That is never a bad position to be in when going into a major final. He knows he can come through regardless of which path the match takes.
This will be the second final Maguire has competed in over this distance this season. He was runner up in the UK Championship, and is probably an underachiever in terms of big titles won, so he will be itching to go one better here. If he has the scoring game that he started the week with he is going to be very hard to beat but he shouldn’t be ruled out if he hasn’t. We’ve said all week that he is dangerous playing with the house money and that is exactly how it has proved.
Special Offer
OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH 888SPORT AND BET £10 TO GET £30 IN FREE BETS PLUS A £10 CASINO BONUS! PERFECT OFFER TO USE ON THIS TOURNAMENT! CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO JOIN. USE CODE 30F. NEW ACCOUNTS ONLY. 18+ T&Cs apply (See image for significant terms). Gamble Aware.
Mark Allen
I doubt even Mark Allen could believe the ease in which he won his semi-final against Mark Selby with. The Northern Irishman got on top early, racing into a 6-0 lead and he was never going to relinquish the advantage from there. We’ve now seen him deliver under pressure from behind in his quarter final win and then front run to good effect in his semi-final victory so he must be full of confidence heading into this final.
Allen is no stranger to winning big titles in recent times and having won The Masters last year he knows he can win the very biggest crowns, something which will give him even more confidence going into this final. He has beaten two seasoned world champions and renowned winners to make it this far and will not want to give up the opportunity of what would be his biggest ranking title to date should he win this final.
Head to Head
These two have only met six times in their careers and it is Mark Allen who leads 4-2 overall although Stephen Maguire won their most recent meeting when he put in a devastating performance in the semi-final of the UK Championship earlier in the season. That was Maguire’s first win in five and to be fair to Allen all four of his wins have come with plenty in hand, so this might not be the close final many expect it to be. It is the first time the pair have met over a two session distance though so it remains to be seen what sort of difference that makes.
Betting
Mark Allen is the favourite to win this final and I would agree with that but I’m not going to back him as I’m already on him at 14/1 to deliver the goods in this match having backed him at those odds to win the tournament. When I struck that bet I expected him to be playing Judd Trump or Neil Robertson so with no disrespect to Stephen Maguire but we’ve already hit the jackpot in that regard. I’m happy to let my outright bet run.
The way the two men have scored this week though I’ve got to think we are going to be treated to a number of high breaks in this final. Neither man likes the balls to go scrappy, instead they like to get them open and dish them up so the safety play that does take place in this final I expect to be on the aggressive side to try and set up chances to score big. 50 breaks are a feature of their previous meetings and I don’t see that changing here. I’ll take the over 12.5 50s in this one.
Tips
Back Over 12.5 50+ breaks for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfair
Back it here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2020
