The golden oldies get their moment in the spotlight this weekend when 16 veteran snooker players head to the Guild Hall in Preston for the World Seniors Championship.
Mark Williams won the title 12 months ago and he is back for more this year. He begins the weekend as the 3/1 favourite to retain the title with Coral but the field is much stronger this year which makes him anything but a certainty.
Unfortunately we’ve lost the nostalgic element to this tournament where the real legends of the game could put on a show and some entertainment like in the early days of the event. The new age limit has frozen the characters out really and we’re left with a pretty serious competition now with 12 of the 16 entrants still on the main tour.
The format of the tournament remains unchanged. The entire event is played across Saturday and Sunday and every match throughout is the best of three frames. A random draw takes place after each round so we can’t predict how the draw will go. There is a shot clock in operation after five minutes of each frame.
In terms of pure world rankings Williams is the standout man in the field. He’s been competing at the business end of full ranking tournaments on the main tour and that is a level above the players in this field but the format is a massive leveller as we’ve seen in the past and if someone gets in early and makes 50 against him all of a sudden the Welshman is under all kinds of pressure so I’d prefer to look for some value.
Mark Davis has a good record in the six reds event and has the quality to take care of a tournament like this but his season hasn’t really hit the heights yet and the one thing I’m looking for is someone who is confident because if you go behind in this tournament there isn’t much room to move so some positive belief is no bad thing.
The shot clock won’t affect Robert Milkins so I see why he is relatively short but he has been very poor this season too which is a concern while I’m not sure I can take Ebdon in an event with a shot clock even though he’s better when he’s playing more fluently.
Dominic Dale, Anthony Hamilton and Fergal O’Brien can all score heavily enough to be competitive in this tournament while the former champion Darren Morgan shouldn’t be ruled out if the draw stays kind to him but I like someone else in this field.
Ken Doherty has been performing with good distinction in the legends exhibitions and he has the temperament and the game to come through a tournament of this kind. Doherty was a semi-finalist in this tournament on debut last year and having warmed up for the event with a show at Goffs last week he should be nicely primed to go a couple of steps better.
Doherty has the German Masters to look forward to next week so I’m sure he’ll have been on the practice table and in this company he is overpriced at 25/1.
This isn’t really a tournament to get stuck into from a match betting point of view so this outright might be my only bet unless there is a dramatic overreaction somewhere over the weekend.
Back K.Doherty to win World Seniors (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Coral (1/2 1-2)
