The snooker circuit heads back to China this week for the Wuhan Open, the second time that the tournament has been held and another fairly important event on the calendar with some big cut off points on the horizon.
Judd Trump didn’t need to worry about that a year ago and he used that lack of pressure to take down the first staging of this tournament. He is back in China looking to make a successful defence of the crown against a decent looking field.
Recent Winners
2023 – Judd Trump
The Format
We have had a qualifying round for this tournament with the exception of the top few players in the world and a few Chinese stars who had their game held over to the venue. That means that 64 players and a few yet to play their qualifying game head to the venue. The tournament is the best of nine frames right through to the quarter finals. The two semi-finals will be the best of 11 and then the champion will be determined over the best of 19 on Sunday where the winner will walk off with a decent first prize of £140,000.
Top Quarter
As the defending champion Judd Trump is the top seed in the draw this week and he is right at the top of the draw bracket. He still has to come through his qualifying round to make the main draw but should he come through that he would be in a section which has a maximum of two other top 16 players. That is because Mark Williams withdrew prior to his qualifying match. Ding Junhui had his qualifying match held over to the main event so he will need to win that to be the second elite player in this quarter while John Higgins will be the third, fresh from his run to the final of the British Open last week.
There are no shortage of other solid names from around the draw outside of the top 16. Robert Milkins has had a poor start to the season with his qualifying match for this event being the only one he has won so he’ll be looking to maximise his week here. Two home players who will be looking to do well here are Fan Zhengyi and Xu Si. Both have shown good bits of form this term, as has the English Open semi-finalist Chris Wakelin who is also in the top quarter this week.
Second Quarter
Ronnie O’Sullivan was meant to be the leading light in the second quarter of the draw but his withdrawal ahead of the week has really opened up this section, not least because Luca Brecel was dumped out in qualifying. Tom Ford was another top 16 player in this quarter and he also bit the dust before the event made it to China. That leaves Zhang Anda as the only top 16 player in the section as he looks to have a good week on home soil.
Those exits will certainly give encouragement to all the players outside the top 16 in this quarter who will think that they can have a big week. The two most likely protagonists in that would appear to be Hossein Vafaei and the home star Si Jiahui but it was only a few weeks ago that Ishpreet Singh Chadha made the English Open semi-final while Pang Junxu knows how to go deep in draws, as does Matt Selt. Graeme Dott has always been a player to feed on unlikely opportunities and he’ll be hoping to do that this week.
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Third Quarter
The third quarter is another which looks wide open all of a sudden as a family illness has deprived Mark Allen the opportunity for what might have been a big run in this tournament. He would have fancied his chances of a good week largely because Mark Selby was a shock casualty in the qualifying event. That leaves two players who were in the top 16 at the time the draw was done in the form of Jak Jones, the recent British Open quarter finalist, and Gary Wilson, who will hope to kick his season into life here.
Neil Robertson is the chief player among those who weren’t in the top 16 at the time of the draw. He has since got back in having won the English Open and he’ll be looking for a decent week here while Jackson Page is another dangerous outsider in this quarter. Jack Lisowski looks to have a great chance to pick up a bank of ranking points which could lead him back to the top 16 while the English Open finalist Wu Yize and Tian Pengfei will look to use home advantage to the full.
Bottom Quarter
This is where the world champion Kyren Wilson will look to win a second Chinese event of the season from having won the Xi’an Grand Prix. He still has to play his qualifying match but should he come through that unscathed then he will be on course to meet Shaun Murphy in the last eight. We have a full complement of top 16 players in this quarter though so the 2023 finalist here Ali Carter and Barry Hawkins will be the chief threats to that happening.
There are a few tidy outsiders in the bottom quarter of the draw as well this week. Ryan Day would be the highest ranked of them but Jimmy Robertson has shown plenty of decent form so far this season while Noppon Saengkham can always be a danger to anyone. The veteran quartet of Anthony Hamilton, Jimmy White, Mark Davis and Marco Fu will all be looking to make an impression as well, as will the home player Xiao Guodong.
Betting
The second and third quarters are the ones to target in this draw so in the former I am going to give another chance to a home man in Zhang Anda. He is now the only top 16 player left in the quarter after the withdrawal of Ronnie O’Sullivan and that has to be a massive advantage. There are a couple of other lively runners in the section in Hossein Vafaei and Si Jiahui but Zhang beat the former comfortably at the British Open recently and wouldn’t face the latter until the quarter final. We saw in the International Championship around this time last year that he can go all the way on home soil and at 25/1 with this draw he is value to go deep again.
The third quarter probably is all about Neil Robertson but were something to happen to him then anyone could come through it and I wonder if that player will be Gary Wilson. Wilson probably hasn’t had the season that he would have wanted but he has had some nasty draws and lost out in a couple of deciders so it could easily have gone the other way with an ounce more luck on his side. The poor results so far might just have lowered the expectations around him but this is a player who won two tournaments last season and he hasn’t gone bad overnight. At 50/1 he is worth paying to see how he goes here.
Tips
Back Z.Anda to win Wuhan Open (e/w) for a 1/10 stake at 26.00 with Unibet (1/2 1-2)
Back G.Wilson to win Wuhan Open (e/w) for a 0.5/10 stake at 51.00 with Sky Bet (1/2 1-2)
