The first Triple Crown title of the season will be won on Sunday when Mark Allen meets Ding Junhui in the final of the UK Championship inside what is sure to be a packed out Barbican Centre in the city of York.
Allen is bidding to win this title for the first time at the third opportunity while Ding will be looking to claim it for a fourth time. 10 is the magic number for these two stars of the game who will hopefully treat us to a fantastic final.
Mark Allen
The one-year rankings will tell you that Mark Allen has been the player of the season so far and he’ll be looking to confirm that is the case by winning a first UK Championship title. While he might be the player of the year to date, he hasn’t been the best player this week. In fact, even by his own admission he hasn’t played anything like his best snooker and doesn’t feel as confident as you would expect a man who has already reached two finals prior to this one this term to be feeling.
That means this final could go one of two ways for him. He could feel like he has nothing to lose as he has done well to make this final and therefore relax and play some of his best snooker, or he could finally be put out of his misery. The one thing we know Allen won’t do is give in. He never does that and there has been evidence of that in the last two rounds when he has overturned a 4-2 deficit to Sam Craigie and a 5-3 problem against Jack Lisowski to win both times without having his best stuff.
Ding Junhui
When Ding Junhui came out of the qualifiers you always felt he had the potential to be dangerous in this tournament. When he came out of the qualifying competition for the World Championship in 2016 he went all the way to the final and six years later he has emulated the feat in this tournament too. He has come through the last three matches for the loss of just four frames as well so he should go into this final as fresh as a daisy.
I think the caveat that Ronnie O’Sullivan never turned up in the quarter final against him and Tom Ford didn’t until it was too late in the semi-final should be offered up but that isn’t Ding’s problem. It does raise the question of what he’ll find if Allen can push him in this final, especially when you consider he ended up falling over the line in the semi-final where he could easily have seen a 5-0 lead eroded to 5-4 had Ford not missed a sitter of a red at 5-3.
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Head-to-head
There have been 14 previous meetings between these two men and it is Ding Junhui who has a 10-4 advantage. That might come as a bit of a surprise but the fact he only leads 57-47 on the frame count would suggest that Allen stays competitive against him without getting over the line very often. This will be their first meeting since 2020 so it has been a while since they have played. Although he has only won four matches against Ding, two of the Allen wins have come in the only two finals they have gone up against each other in, although neither of them were a two-session final with the magnitude of this one. This will be just their second two-session match with Allen winning the previous one in the last 16 of this tournament 9-8 in 2010.
Betting
I think this is a very intriguing final. Ding Junhui certainly looks the more confident player going into it but he doesn’t always play very well in finals and can often wilt under pressure and you would imagine he’ll be under a fair amount of that here either by Mark Allen finding his form and playing well or Ding getting ahead and having to cross the finish line. He didn’t do that well against Tom Ford in the semi-final and I suspect the Chinese star, who is playing in his first final for three years, could be vulnerable as a favourite here.
There is no getting away from the fact that Allen has to find some form if he is going to win this final but it is the third final he has been in this season and he might have a feeling that he should be going home after the position he was in during his semi-final and that can often free a player up to play well. Experience could be key here because finals are different beasts. Of these two there’s no doubt in my mind that Allen will handle the pressure better so unless Ding gets miles in front, which can’t be ruled out although I think it is unlikely, I think Allen gets him in the end.
Tips
Back M.Allen to beat D.Junhui for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
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