World champion Kyren Wilson is one of the headline acts at the UK Championship this week, and Richard Mann is keen on his chances in his outright preview.
Snooker betting tips: UK Championship
3pts Ronnie O’Sullivan to win the UK Championship at 11/2 (General)
2pts Kyren Wilson to win the UK Championship at 8/1 (Star Sports)
The UK Championship is very much RONNIE O’SULLIVAN’s tournament, York in many ways his second home – and snooker’s once in a lifetime player is backed to deliver another early Christmas gift at the Barbican next week.
With a career spanning over 30 years, O’Sullivan’s CV is littered with glory. He is the most decorated player in the history of the sport, with 41 ranking titles and a host of major invitational event wins, including eight Masters victories. Seven World Championships will always headline that CV, and he might not be finished at the Crucible yet.
Time to rekindle York love affair
But the UK Championship has been a marvellous event for O’Sullivan and while he once referred to Sheffield as an ‘ordeal’, and skipped the Masters completely in 2020, he always pitches up in York, always with warm words to say about a city he has great affection for and a tournament and venue he clearly loves.
In 2018, O’Sullivan brought up back-to-back UK titles, making it seven in total as he moved clear of Steve Davis on the list of all-time winners. And then, following a couple of quarter-final exits, he was a picture of grit and determination when picking up the trophy in York again 12 months ago.
Make no mistake, it was far from vintage O’Sullivan last year. He needed to come through final-frame deciders against Robert Milkins and Zhou Yuelong in the early rounds, before finally coming good in the latter stages. Hossein Vafaei was put in his place in the last four and then Ding Junhui outgunned in the final – O’Sullivan flicking that genius switch from 7-7 to win 10-7, a couple of centuries and a run of 74 once again leaving those inside the Barbican in awe.
And that was very much the norm from O’Sullivan last season in a campaign he well and truly dominated. He produced a similar late show to beat Ali Carter in the final of the Masters, was imperious in Shanghai and Saudi Arabia, and was much too strong for current world number one Judd Trump in the World Grand Prix final.
That 2023/2024 campaign was a stellar one even by O’Sullivan’s high standards as he once more underlined his status as the best player in the sport, past and present. That he ran out of steam at the World Championship at the end of such an arduous campaign probably says more about that tournament and the current calendar than it does O’Sullivan.
It seems that every year we are looking for signs of the finish line for O’Sullivan and fellow Class of 92 graduates, Mark Williams and John Higgins. As O’Sullivan demonstrated just a matter of months ago, and Williams at the Players Championship only last week, we are a long way from that.
Sporting Life’s boxing writer, Chris Oliver, once remarked to me that elite boxers can become old overnight, but that is just not the case in snooker. Williams argued last week that he and O’Sullivan aren’t as good now as they were in their prime, and while that must be up for debate anyway, any such decline has been so gradual that it hasn’t stopped these great players staying at the top of the game for decades now.
Look past O’Sullivan’s recent form
And that brings us nicely onto O’Sullivan’s current form, which in fairness does cause some concern for his supporters. But, as I’ve just alluded to, it was only at the beginning of this year that O’Sullivan bossed the Masters and World Grand Prix, and while he has yet to win this season, he has opted to skip a number of tournaments, presumably with a view to keeping himself fresh for York and some huge events after Christmas.
That’s my take on things anyway and I don’t for a minute think he’s seriously contemplating retirement just yet, nor that he feels he can’t compete anymore. When he has rocked up for the big tournaments, there has been plenty to be encouraged by. After all, he made the semi-finals at the Shanghai Masters and Xi’an Grand Prix, losing to the eventual winner on both occasions.
Since then, it would’ve surprised absolutely nobody that O’Sullivan missed the British Open and Northern Ireland Open, especially with his Eurosport commitments seemingly on hold for the time being, but I thought he made a really promising ‘return’ at the Champion of Champions last week, losing 4-3 to Xiao Guodong after producing near immaculate snooker to lead 3-0. Xiao played out of skin in that match, as he did when producing a similar comeback against Mark Selby and then when beating Mark Allen in the last four.
I did think O’Sullivan looked a touch rusty in the latter part of it but really, he barely got a sniff, and I certainly don’t think we should judge that loss too harshly at all. In best-of-seven matches, that’s just the nature of the beast. I do, however, think a good match like that against a high-class opponent will have done him the power of good.
It reminded me a little bit of when O’Sullivan lost in a terrific encounter with Neil Robertson at the 2022 Tour Championship, before taking a big step forward at the World Championship just a few weeks later as he roared to his seventh world title.
Quite often with the top players, there is another day and an even bigger target on the horizon, and I sensed that from O’Sullivan last week. He will need to improve, no doubt, but we’ve said that about O’Sullivan so many times before and he’s so often delivered. That what the great players do in the big tournaments – and O’Sullivan is the greatest of them all.
Early rounds could be key to title chances
His first couple of matches could be potentially tricky, and Ken Doherty gave him a real fright early in 2018, but were he to get some frames and some wins under his belt, O’Sullivan could be an irresistible force in a venue he enjoys and at a tournament he really has made his own.
A potential rematch with Xiao would be no penalty kick, but this is very much O’Sullivan’s patch and there is no guarantee Xiao will be able to pick himself up so quickly after Bolton. After that, the recent hold O’Sullivan has had over both Ding and Shaun Murphy suggests this might not be a bad draw at all.
In fact, 2021 champion Zhao Xintong could yet emerge as the biggest threat from that section having breezed through qualifying as he continues his return to the sport following his highly-publicised ban along with a number of other Chinese players and English veteran Mark King. We are dealing with a serious talent here, but this does represent a marked step up from the level of snooker Zhao has been contending of late.
Back to O’Sullivan, then, and the 11/2 widely available is bigger than punters are used to seeing about snooker’s poster boy, an indication that we do need to take a little bit of a leap of faith here. Nevertheless, I’m happy to take the bait and will be betting accordingly.
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Other names to note from the top half of the draw are Mark Selby and Mark Allen. Selby has won the British Open already this season and has twice picked up first prize at this event, though the last of those wins came in 2016 and a couple of quarter-finals are the best he’s managed since.
It’s hard to know exactly where we stand with Selby and his game, though he clearly warrants great respect the deeper into tournaments he progresses. Selby’s record in finals is outstanding.
Allen’s recent record at this event is more compelling. He was runner-up to O’Sullivan in 2018 and then went one better when beating Ding – who has been a beaten finalist in each of the last two years – in 2022 following a fine fightback that demonstrated the development in the Northern Irishman’s all-round game.
He is a much harder man to beat nowadays, with a terrific safety game and a real tough streak. Allen wanted to become a serial winner and he has done just that, but even in Bolton last week when reaching the last four, he looked to be searching for his best form.
It could well come next week, the same applies to Selby too, but I personally took more encouragement from what I saw from O’Sullivan at the Champion of Champions.
Top Trump or another early exit?
The bottom half of the draw his headed by Trump who is the current world number one for good reason, having helped himself to a couple of major titles already this term and reached two more finals. Trump’s consistency is quite remarkable and his defeat to Robertson last week is nothing to get too hung up on.
Trump enjoyed a fine run to the semi-finals here 12 months ago and has won the tournament once before, in 2011, but his more recent record at the Barbican isn’t too flash by his otherwise incredibly high standards. In truth, I’m just not convinced Trump enjoys this tournament all that much.
We shouldn’t forget that the 2020 final he lost to Robertson came behind closed doors when the event was staged in Milton Keynes in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic. A year earlier, Trump lost to veteran Nigel Bond in the third round here in York and he also suffered early exits in both 2021 and 2022.
That recent York return is reason enough to oppose the 4/1 favourite, especially when you consider he could face Champion of Champions hero, Williams, in the quarter-finals and that Kyren Wilson, who has had his number in two big finals already this term, is also in the same half of the draw.
If Williams can replicate the form he displayed when waltzing to another big tournament win in Bolton then he will again be a tough nut to crack, and he does appear to have as much confidence in his game now as he’s ever had. It’s been refreshing to hear him finally accept that he should be spoken about in the same conversation as the likes of O’Sullivan and Higgins and the final act of his career could be lucrative.
In beating Wilson, Robertson and Xiao to win that title, he had to do things the hard way and his best snooker remains good enough to beat anyone. He also downed O’Sullivan in the final of the Tour Champions in April, just to underline that point.
World champ Wilson primed for deep run
With all that in mind, quotes of 18/1 about the two-time UK champion must be of interest, though his more recent record at this event is relatively poor and from the bottom half, I still prefer KYREN WILSON.
The world champion is handling all that comes with that tag extremely well, with two tournament wins already in the bag this season, and his demolition job on Trump in the final of the Northern Ireland Open seemingly heralded a new dawn in the sport.
Perhaps such ideas were premature, but his form still looked to be there in the Champion of Champions, as it did in China a week earlier when losing to eventual winner Ding at the International Championship. He had his chances to beat Williams in Bolton and certainly played well, if just a little sloppily at times.
Full of confidence, Wilson has noticeably quickened up his play this term and while there is a better balance to be struck, his game remains in good shape overall. I do expect that with the BBC cameras on Wilson for the first time since his maiden Crucible triumph, he will keyed up and determined to give a good account of himself.
A snooker man through and through, this week, when he will be welcomed as world champion, will mean an awful lot to Wilson and I’m sure we’ll see the very best of him. And that’s the key point here: when at his best this season, just as was the case when trouncing Trump in Belfast, few have been able to touch the world champion. His ceiling his higher than most in the game right now, that is for sure.
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Wilson has yet to win the UK Championship, but first-time world champions have often played well here in the past and he did reach the quarter-finals in 2020 and the semis a year later when beating O’Sullivan in the last eight. He might well need to beat O’Sullivan again to add another Triple Crown win to his name next week, and an O’Sullivan/Wilson final is by no means out of the question.
That might be an option worth exploring when more markets are priced up, but I’m happy to stick with one from each half of the draw – O’Sullivan on one side as the main bet at 11/2, with the 8/1 on offer about Wilson from the bottom half making him decent saver material and giving us a strong hand in the first Triple Crown event of the season.
Posted at 1600 GMT on 21/11/24
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