The Home Nations series concludes over the next week when the best players in the snooker world head to Llandudno for what is a more important Welsh Open than ever before with this tournament forming the final event in qualifying for the Players Championship.
Joe Perry pulled off something of a surprise to come through the draw and land the title a year ago and he is in Llandudno looking to make a successful defence but this is a big week for a number of big names looking to make the Players Championship.
Recent Winners
2022 – Joe Perry
2021 – Jordan Brown
2020 – Shaun Murphy
2019 – Neil Robertson
2018 – John Higgins
2017 – Stuart Bingham
2016 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2015 – John Higgins
2014 – Ronnie O’Sullivan
2013 – Stephen Maguire
The Format
These Home Nations events have been around for a while now and while the format of them hasn’t changed, the way the arenas have been put together have. There are four tables in action throughout the event, which allows us to follow the action a lot easier, and there has been a qualifying round to avoid taking the whole 128 players in the field to the main venue. Some of those qualifiers have been held over and will be played on Monday though with the main draw beginning on Tuesday. The tournament is the best of seven frames up to the quarter finals which are played over the best of nine frames on Friday with the two semi-finals the best of 11 frames on the Saturday and the title will be won on the Sunday of the event over the best of 17 frames.
Top Quarter
Joe Perry isn’t in the top 16 in the world rankings but as the defending champion he is the number one seed this week and he is in the top quarter as a result of that. That means we only have three top 16 players in this section looking to make it through to the semi-final. The home man Mark Williams will be extremely popular with the crowds as well the second highest ranked Welsh player in Ryan Day. Both are in this quarter as is Kyren Wilson. Williams is currently the last man into the Players Championship so he’ll be looking to protect that position.
It is a big week for a few of the players outside the top 16 this week too. Jordan Brown is defending the money he won when he won this tournament two years ago so he needs a decent week to avoid a big ranking hit. Joe O’Connor, the Scottish Open finalist, begins the week at 19 on the race for the Players Championship and needs the quarter final at least to have a chance of being there. Graeme Dott, Mark King, Noppon Sanegkham and Michael White are all capable of big weeks while the Shootout finalist Julien Leclercq is also in this quarter.
Second Quarter
Judd Trump is the highest ranked player on show in the second quarter this week. The Masters champion is safe for the Players Championship but Neil Robertson isn’t and if he is going to defend his title next week then he is going to need to win at least two rounds from this quarter. Two other members of the top 16 are in this section of the draw. They are The Masters semi-finalist Jack Lisowski and the 2020 winner of this event in Shaun Murphy.
Anthony McGill and Sam Craigie have had good seasons and are still in the hunt for a place at the Players Championship but they will need to go deep from this quarter to get there. Ricky Walden had a good season last term but hasn’t really backed that up this time around. Matt Selt has had a number of outings in the Championship League in the week leading up to this tournament and he could go well as could Yuan Sijun, Stephen Maguire and Dominic Dale.
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Third Quarter
Mark Selby is the highest ranked player in the third quarter of the draw this week. He won the previous Home Nations event when he took down the English Open and will go in search of successive wins in the series. He is slated to meet the man of the season in Mark Allen in the quarter final but Barry Hawkins will certainly have something to say about that. He is one place outside the Players Championship spots and needs a good week here to get in. Luca Brecel is the other top 16 player in the section.
Robert Milkins is another who is involved in the race for the Players Championship and he’ll aim to get there from this third quarter. In terms of big names outside the top 16 in this section there won’t be any bigger than Ding Junhui. Hossein Vafaei is another leading light in this section while Cao Yupeng, Lyu Haotian, Ben Woollaston and Si Jiahui are all capable of winning a few rounds and getting to the business end of the event.
Bottom Quarter
All eyes will be on the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan this week. He pretty much has to win the title if he is going to compete at the Players Championship next week so it will be interesting to see how close he goes to achieving that. John Higgins is the man assigned the task of facing in the quarter final if everything goes to the seeding. He too needs to win the tournament to play next week so that could be a huge last eight clash if it comes round. We were due to have Xiao Guodong in the field but his suspension means there is only one other top 16 player in this section. That is Stuart Bingham.
Matthew Stevens always gets plenty of support in this tournament and he’ll look to have a decent run from this quarter. Chris Wakelin won the Snooker Shootout last month and is in this quarter as well. The German Masters winner Ali Carter looks for successive titles this week while Dave Gilbert, Marco Fu and Martin Gould are all tournament winners. Alexander Ursenbacher can be dangerous while Jimmy White is in some excellent form right now.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets in the outright market this week. I don’t really want to get involved in the race for the Players Championship so I’ll take a couple of players who are safely in that tournament. My main bet is Luca Brecel who I think is ticking and is just waiting for the right time to pounce. If you go back to The Masters he ran into Ronnie O’Sullivan in the first round but if he was an ounce sharper he would have led that 3-1 and might have been away and gone and then he looked really good at the German Masters but ran into Robert Milkins who was a scoring machine that week. Brecel made the English Open final at the end of 2022 so he was playing well and with a couple of winnable matches to get into his work this week I think he is good value here.
I always like to back a Welsh player in this tournament because it is obviously a big thing for them. Mark Williams has been my default offering this season but the bookmakers have cottoned onto how well he is playing so I’ll switch up and go with Ryan Day. I wanted a bet in the top quarter anyway with the number one seed Joe Perry not being a top 16 player and Day is in that part of the draw so he isn’t going to run into a top 16 player until the quarter final. Day is having a good season. He won the British Open and should have beaten Trump at The Masters. With the draw wide open in his mini-section he looks big at 66/1 with the motivation of winning on home soil.
Tips
Back L.Brecel to win Welsh Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 34.00 with BetVictor (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
Back R.Day to win Welsh Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 67.00 with William Hill (1/2 1-2)
Back him here:
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