The eighth edition of the Snooker Players Championship starts on Monday, March 19th in Llandudno, Wales and this is the eighteenth ranking tournament of the current season. Heading back to the tournament as the reigning champion is Judd Trump after his success over Marco Fu last season. This is a 16-man tournament which will run for a week, the final being held on March 25th.
Reigning Champion
Judd Trump got his hands on the title last season and his big challenge really was getting past Ronnie O’Sullivan in the quarter finals. He met up with Marco Fu in the final and it was a tense struggle between the two of them as well. Fu didn’t manage to get a century break in the match, while Trump landed four of them and finished with the tournament’s highest break of 136 in the eighth frame.
Snooker Players Championship winner odds*
Ronnie O’Sullivan 9/4, John Higgins 5/1, Mark Selby 7/1, Judd Trump 8/1, Neil Robertson 12/1, Mark Williams 12/1, Ding Junhui 14/1, Shaun Murphy 18/1, Mark Allen 18/1, Ryan Day 20/1, Kyren Wilson 25/1, bar 28/1* (betting odds taken on March 18th, 2018 at 11:07 p.m.)
Qualification
It is a pretty straightforward affair for qualification requirements. The top sixteen on the one-year ranking list (up to and including the Gibraltar Open) for the season gets their places.
The Draw
The draw will be split out over the seeds, so the top seed plays the bottom seed, the second seed plays the second from bottom seeds and so on.
1 Ronnie O’Sullivan
2 Mark Williams
3 John Higgins
4 Judd Trump
5 Luca Brecel
6 Shaun Murphy
7 Mark Selby
8 Ding Junhui
9 Mark Allen
10 Ryan Day
11 Kyren Wilson
12 Neil Robertson
13 Stephen Maguire
14 Anthony McGill
15 Yan Bingtao
16 Graeme Dott
So that means that the draw for the round of sixteen is
Top Half
Ronnie O’Sullivan v Graeme Dott
Ding Junhui v Mark Allen
Luca Brecel v Neil Robertson
Judd Trump v Stephen Maguire
Bottom Half
John Higgins v Anthony McGill
Shaun Murphy v Kyren Wilson
Mark Selby v Ryan Day
Mark Williams v Yan Bingtao
Ronnie O’Sullivan
Last season O’Sullivan lost out to Judd Trump in the quarter finals and the two would be on a for a mouth-watering collision course in this season’s semi-final. So there is a tricky road ahead for both of them. The opposition there in O’Sullivan’s quarter isn’t all that tough for him to get through if he is on song. He’ll be looking to add to his World Grand Prix title won back at the end of February. You would get the feeling that he gets past Trump the title is his.
John Higgins
John Higgins bombed last season in the first round, losing a decider in his opener against Ding Junhui. He is short in the odds because of his win at the Welsh Open recently. That was his second title this season. He has a pretty shocking record though at the Players Championship and is worth skipping over.
Mark Selby
Mark Selby’s form really isn’t going to be instilling too much confidence into any punter at the moment. A semi-final at the World Grand Prix is really all that he has to speak of in his current form and hasn’t been on top of his game and looks vulnerable. He exited with a heavy loss against Marco Fu in last season’s quarter finals of the Players Championship.
Judd Trump
After his back to back semi finals at the Scottish Open and the German Masters, Trump hasn’t quite been at his best. However, there was a bit better from him at the non-ranking Romanian Masters last week where he made the quarter finals. He should definitely be in the mix in this one as he has a comfortable draw. Would he be able to take down O’Sullivan again if it came to it?
Each Way Options
Ryan Day at 20/1 odds with bet365 heads up * (betting odds taken on March 18th, 2018 at 11:07 p.m.) the each way options. He just busted out a win at the Romanian Open in early March for the second ranking tournament of the season. He followed that up with a win at the Romanian Masters too last weekend, a non-ranking event. He hasn’t been past the second stage of the Players Championship from his four previous visits though.
Kyren Wilson is the other each-way option at 25/1 with bet365* (betting odds taken on March 18th, 2018 at 11:07 p.m.) and he is carrying good form into the tournament. He made the quarter finals of the Gibraltar Open and then made the semi-finals at the Romanian Open last week so hasn’t been in bad form at all. This will only be his second crack at the Players Championship though.
O’Sullivan should handle things in the top half of the draw and a potential showdown with Trump should be a great thing to see. Of them, it is probably worth riding O’Sullivan to edge the battle because when he is on his game he’s unstoppable. From the bottom half of the table, there are a lot of good players there without any of them really being in any kind of form. So it is worth having an each way punt on either Wilson or Day.
