Who is your pick to win the world's this year?

[Starsky]

I’m surprised nobody has voted for Selby yet .
Ive placed a bet on him as well as Bingtao and Williams.

I still fancy Robertson on current form but so do the bookies

[balkend]

Was just going to post about no vote for Selby but you beat me to it Starsky . Would love Selby to go very deep at least , you feel for him and he is an ace bloke

[fkhan]

Good luck to Selby. He is seeing a Psychitrist so must be feeling better.

[Mark187187]

Hard year this one. Neil is the form player, but he has been most years since his win and not won it again, maybe he doesn't like the venue or something. Ronnie is playing well, but I don't think he's got the focus over the 2+ weeks. Last time he won it Selby let him off the hook a bit, and Kyren didn't put up much resistance in the final. John Higgins seems to have a mental block in finals, and is carrying a lot of battle scars from the last few years. I'll probably put a few quid on Judd. He isn't playing great, but I can see him growing into the tournament, and his draw to the quarters could be a lot worse. On paper, his quarter is probably the weakest- McGill, Highfield, Mcgill are players he'd expect to beat, and then a QF against maybe Kyren or Bingham isn't going to give him sleepless nights.

[The Boss]

I think Ronnie or Lisowski will win it

[Odrl]

Alright, it's time for one of these posts again... Shorter than usual this time, so I will just post it here.

It's been a weird season for snooker to say the least. The old-timers are still going strong, with more than half of the events won by players in their 40s, including some fairly surprising ones like Joe Perry and Robert Milkins. Of course that statistic is helped by the fact that Neil Robertson is now in that group as well. And then you have the rise of Zhao Xintong at the same time. Not that surprising of course, but I don't think anyone quite expected him to win two major events this season, and I certainly didn't expect Fan Zhengyi to win one either. It seems like there is an entire generation of players that has been largely skipped here, with the likes of Lisowski, McGill and Kyren Wilson not winning anything between them this season, even though it is they who should be in the prime of their career right about now.

I do wonder if the World Championship is going to continue the trend of some bizarre results this season, or will things be a little more predictable? But let's not waste any more time. It's time to answer the old question… Who is going to win the 2022 World Championship?

As usual, let’s start at the other end, with a few players who, in my opinion, have absolutely no chance of winning it. Of the debutants, Ashley Hugill stands out as someone who has never reached the business end of any professional tournament, major or minor, which is an unusual statistic these days. The same is true of Jackson Page, although he has been close a couple of times and is of course a much younger player.

I would also dismiss the chances of Chris Wakelin. He has a few ranking quarter-finals in the short format, but nothing that would suggest he could beat the world’s best players over multiple sessions. Similar story with Liam Highfield. He was very highly regarded as a junior, but he is in his 30s now, with no results to mention.

Moving on, I would also rule out Jamie Clarke. He played a surprisingly big part in this tournament two years ago, coming within a few balls of making the quarter-finals. I definitely expected to see more of him after that, but he has had no real results in the last two years. Maybe he can find some form again at this venue? Noppon Saengkham has struggled this season as well, but I am not surprised to see him here. He has the right kind of mentality for the longer games, and he plays quite methodically and usually keeps his concentration pretty well. Scott Donaldson is the player who had the easiest job in the final qualifying round, or perhaps I should say that he made it easy for himself by winning so convincingly. He is another player with a disappointing season behind him, but his runs to the business end of tournaments are much more frequent. Okay, mostly in the short format, but he did also reach the semi-finals of the 2019 China Open, which was a really big event. At 28 years of age, I think Donaldson should be looking to raise his game in the near future and climb up the rankings a little bit.

Moving onto the more familiar names, I wouldn’t give Matthew Stevens much chance either. I know I promised not to underestimate him again after his run in the 2018 International Championship, but it’s been more than three years since then, and he has shown no signs of coming back to form. He may have one of the best Crucible records of anyone in the field, but this season it’s been all early exits. There is a theme of returning Welshmen at the Crucible this year, and that includes the former quarter-finalist Jamie Jones. He has actually beaten the seeded player on three occasions in the past, so he is definitely a dangerous draw. Obviously his career suffered a pretty big setback when he was suspended for a season, and it’s been hard work for him to climb back up the rankings. I can’t see him winning the tournament, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did some damage in his quarter of the draw. Michael White also returns after some years of absence. After a promising early career, he has dropped down the rankings quite dramatically, and even dropped off the tour in the end. Clearly there were some mental issues that contributed to that, with some pretty infamous outbursts of anger during matches a few years ago. It’s not a good sign for a long tournament such as this one, as setbacks are bound to happen here, even for players who end up having a good run. And speaking of good runs, White has won a couple of minor events that carried ranking points, but he has never actually been beyond the quarter-finals of any event outside of the short format in his career.

Before we get to the next group, I feel like there is one other player I should probably rule out at this point. Lyu Haotian is definitely going in the wrong direction at the moment as well. He was fantastic as a wildcard in the Chinese events when he was very young, but a few of the other players from that generation have overtaken him since. He hinted at a chance of a breakthrough three seasons ago, but it’s been years without any notable result now. That said, he is even younger than Zhao Xintong, so time is definitely still on his side.

Let’s continue with a few players who could have a good run here, but probably don’t have much chance of actually winning the tournament. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh is in this group for sure. Similar story to a few of the other players here, he is not playing as well as he was a few seasons ago, with his last tournament run of any note coming back in 2020. His game is fairly one-dimensional, and he is not exactly a great pressure player, but he does pot and score very quickly and efficiently when it’s going for him. And the breaks were definitely flying in for him in the qualifiers. In a way, Jack Lisowski is a better version of Un-Nooh, but unfortunately his game has all the same faults. That’s why he is the only top 16 player I really can’t see winning the tournament. Well, I guess the other thing is the fact that he hasn’t actually won one yet, despite being high enough in the rankings that this will be his fourth consecutive appearance at the Crucible as a seeded player. The lack of improvement is the most worrying thing for him, or I guess the lack of any kind of maturity on the table. Anything he does well in terms of potting and scoring, he undermines with the lack of a safety game and ridiculous shot selection. And it gets worse when the pressure is on as well. At this point, I think it’s kind of obvious that he either can’t, or won’t work on these issues, so he is not winning this title until that changes.

I think a lot of people have a soft spot for Hossein Vafaei. He may be a debutant, but not really a surprising qualifier this year. He has had a better season than some of the players mentioned above, the highlight being his run to the semi-finals of the Welsh Open. Even though it was Trump who beat him there, I don’t think he will be particularly happy to draw him here. Vafaei has had strong runs outside of the short format in the past, and he is still only 27, despite an appearance that makes him look a few years older. He has spoken about his ambition of climbing up the rankings and joining the top players in the past, and he is now getting to an age where he could make that a reality. If there was one last player I had to rule out, I think it would be David Gilbert. He is coming back to the Crucible as a qualifier after a few years of appearing as a seed, but he actually has a decent chance of getting back into the top 16 with a good result here. I’m sure he didn’t really want to draw O’Sullivan, but then again, none of the seeds probably had Gilbert anywhere near the top of the list of qualifiers they were hoping to draw either. He has improved remarkably as a player in his mid to late 30s, and reached a level of consistency I would never have expected from him. And we know he can win matches at the Crucible too, having reached the semi-finals in 2019, and actually getting within a frame of making it to the final. There isn’t an obvious flaw in his game, apart from maybe a slight lack of a killer instinct whenever a chance for a really good result presents itself. That’s probably why he has never won a proper tournament. Chances are that it will eventually happen for him, but I don’t think it’s going to be this one.

That leaves the 17 players who, in my opinion, have at least an outside chance here.

I guess we should start with the two qualifiers. Stephen Maguire has been in all kinds of positions at the Crucible over the years, among the big favourites a few times, and dismissed beforehand at other times. The result always seems to be the same though, he goes out in a pretty underwhelming fashion. I think he was most people’s pick as one of the dangerous qualifiers this year, but probably nothing more than that. He just doesn’t have any recent results behind him to justify his being any higher on the list. In fact, the opposite is true. His results after new year have been just dreadful, losing in the opening round or even the qualifiers of every single event. So why am I not dismissing him more confidently here? I guess mainly because his most recent tournament victory is not exactly ancient history, the Tour Championship two years ago, and it was in the long format. He was generally playing quite well shortly before the pandemic, even getting to the UK final that season, and he can count himself unlucky to have come up against such a strong opponent there, given how well he played himself. Some of his angry outbursts on the table have switched into a kind of ironic acceptance of his fate these days, but I think it’s still the mental side of his game that will let him down over 17 days, even if he does regain his form.

I’m guessing the one player no one really wanted to draw here is Ding Junhui. He has finished the season as a top 16 player for 15 years in a row now, but it looks like that sequence might be coming to an end. He would need a really deep run here to prolong it. Still, it’s not really a lack of form that has seen him drop down the rankings, but rather his decision to basically become a part-time player. He skips so many events now, and that’s of course affecting his sharpness even when he does play, so it’s often a struggle to get through the qualifiers and the early rounds. He did get to the business end of the last two tournaments he played in though, both in March, so he could be coming here with a bit more confidence, and with his game in better shape. He was the player to beat Maguire in that UK final two seasons ago, playing out of his skin for most of the tournament. If he took snooker more seriously, I think we would have seen a lot more of that from Ding over the years. But as it is, his best years were probably back when he was still a teenager, and then that one season where he won five events. He could have done more at the Crucible as well… He actually lost to the eventual champion in four of the last six editions. Trump’s win in 2019 is remembered as a great performance now, but Ding was actually in front after two sessions of their match, before playing a lazy session and losing pretty unceremoniously. Similar story against O’Sullivan a year later. If I remember correctly, Ding actually had some bad luck on two occasions where he could have gone two frames in front, before O’Sullivan came back to win it. We’ll never know what could have happened in those tournaments, but I think Ding can consider them a wasted opportunity. Well, there is definitely a chance to put things right here, the draw is not too difficult for him. He just needs to turn up and play to his potential.

Unlike Maguire, Shaun Murphy has been pretty much in the same position ahead of the World Championship for the past 15 years or so. Not one of the big favourites, but probably in the group immediately after. Well, until this year that is… He has been pretty dreadful by his standards for most of the season. I guess the low point was when he made a fool of himself on and off the table at the UK Championship, losing his opening match against an amateur, and then complaining that he should have somehow been allowed to win by default. I was glad he lost that one, and glad for the early exits of all the other players who were stupid enough to validate his comments as well, but I guess it’s time to move on from that now. Seems like Murphy has been able to do that, playing a bit better last month to reach the semi-finals of the Turkish Masters. The pattern is actually not too dissimilar to last season, where he only started playing well towards the end of it, and of course went on to reach the final at the Crucible. Despite his struggles in some of the other recent editions of the World Championship, I actually think he is very well suited to the longer format. He is a good front-runner usually and can do a lot of damage in single sessions when it’s going for him, but he is also quite good at sticking in a match and waiting for the momentum to turn his way. And I guess there is no better example of that than his semi-final against Kyren Wilson last year. As always, if the long pots are flying in, Murphy could be one to watch here.

I think Stuart Bingham should be in this group this year as well. He’s only had a couple of good runs this season, unfortunately all of them in the short format. Particularly worrying are his results after new year, where he lost in the qualifiers of most events, and of course failed to qualify for those that are done according to the rankings as well. He too is in serious danger of ending the season outside of the top 16 for the first time in many years, so he could definitely do with a good result here. One thing in his favour of course is the fact that he has won this title before, so there is no doubt over his ability to produce his best on the big occasions. Last year he reached the one-table setup for the first time since he won it in 2015, and he gave Selby a really good game too. When he is playing well, he tends to score quite quickly and effortlessly, which is a great asset in a tournament as long as this one. You don’t want to expend any unnecessary energy, getting stuck in lots of slow and fragmented games where you need to grind out the result. But Bingham can do that if he needs to as well, very experienced and strong in all aspects of the game.

Anthony McGill is another player I wouldn’t quite rule out, although he tends to disappoint more often than not. He won a couple of very minor events five seasons ago, and I expected that to be a good foundation for his winning something bigger in the following few years, but it hasn’t quite happened for him yet. We’ve seen him at the business end of a few events this season, including two with matches of decent length. Unfortunately it’s not been enough to qualify him for the Players Championship or the Tour Championship (stupid generic event names by the way, but I can complain about that some other time ), so the one chance he has to show his ability in the longer games is here. And he has played well here recently. Two years ago he missed out on the final in the most dramatic of circumstances, and last year it was a similar story when he came within a frame of reaching the semi-finals again. For better or worse, McGill is quite a steady and reliable player. He is not going to throw frames and matches away through stupidity or poor tactical play, like a Lisowski would, but he is probably not going to blow anyone away with his potting and scoring either. Although he did have a pretty good scoring spell when he took control of his match against O’Sullivan last year. I think he needs to find more of that kind of form to have a chance of going far again.

Barry Hawkins is an interesting case. He seems like a nervous player that doesn’t really inspire much confidence, and perhaps he is, but he has probably played more one-visit snooker at the Crucible than almost anyone else in the last decade or so. He also had a period where he reached the one-table setup five times in six years, between 2013 and 2018. He lost in the 2nd round in the last three editions, but still played some good stuff at times. He is pretty much the complete player when he plays well, but he does tend to get involved in lots of those matches that go 13-11 or something like that, and it’s difficult to keep winning them. One statistic I dislike with Hawkins is that he has been a top player for a decade now, ever since his triumph in the 2012 Australian Open, but he has never actually managed to add another title outside of the short format. I don’t imagine he sees it the same way, as the couple of titles he’s won were still quite lucrative in terms of prize money, but, for me, he still has something to prove in the major tournaments. Good signs in that respect this season though, with appearances in the semi-finals of the UK Championship and the final of the Masters, along with another final in the Players Championship. Finals are not titles though.

And let’s conclude this group with Mark Allen. On results from this season alone, he is actually quite respectable. He won the Northern Ireland Open back in October, then had a few quiet months before reaching the semi-finals of the German Masters at the end of January, a tournament he once criticised and promised not to attend again. In any case, it was good to see him winning a title again after his much-publicised personal problems. His game should be well suited to the longer format. He is one of those players who score efficiently without much fuss, tactically he is much improved from his younger days, and he plays the game with a lot of heart and doesn’t really give up too easily. On the other hand, his results don’t really support this theory, at least not in the last decade or so. One quarter-final from the last ten editions of the tournament is a really unimpressive statistic, with quite a few 1st round exits thrown in as well. And all that from someone who has appeared here as a seeded player every year since 2009. It’s true that some of the performances produced against him have been pretty impressive, but he has failed to raise his own game as well, and that’s in spite of tactically skipping the China Open a few times just to prepare for the Crucible. Can he finally put something together here?

And now we move onto the players who I think have a more realistic chance of winning this title.

I was originally reluctant to include Mark Williams in this group, but he tends to surprise me every time I write him off. I thought he was pretty much done with snooker after his World title in 2018, in the sense that he wouldn’t put in as much work anymore. We’ve seen that before from Williams, and he tends to drop down the rankings quite a bit when it happens. This time he has stuck around though. I won’t give him much credit for winning the British Open... Personally, I think that tournament was a disgrace. Using the name of a tournament with so much history, and then playing it in a best-of-5 format and awarding more prize money than proper events? Disgraceful decision, and the winner may as well be picked at random. Unsurprisingly, Williams never faced another top player along the way, but I guess that’s not his fault. It’s helped to keep him unrealistically high in the rankings though. Even so, we’ve definitely seen quite a bit of him on the big stage this season. He was practically over the line in his semi-final against Robertson at the Masters, before bottling it pretty badly. In hindsight, I think he would have probably beaten Hawkins in the final, so he can count that one as a wasted opportunity. There was a mini repeat of that just recently when he lost to O’Sullivan in the Tour Championship, although that wasn’t quite as dramatic. I don’t know… Williams has this reputation as a great tactical and pressure player, but at times I wonder if it’s entirely deserved. It definitely was in the past, but now his attitude around the table and his shot selection often look somewhat bizarre. He’s made it work for him over the years though, and certainly has the results to justify the way he plays. He wouldn’t be my pick this year, but I guess it wouldn’t shock me that much if he won either.

Then we have old man John Higgins, almost as old as Williams, and still just as good. I guess this paragraph just writes itself. It’s impossible to talk about anything other than his five finals this season. The obvious positive side of all of those is his great consistency, which has only improved on the pattern he had two seasons ago when it was quarter-finals rather than finals that he was reaching on a consistent basis. His game is clearly in good shape at the moment, which should put him among the tournament favourites. However, there are some questions when it comes to the mental side of things at the moment. I didn’t think I would ever be talking about this, as Higgins has a deserved reputation as one of the very best pressure players of all time, but there is a bit of a pattern of losing games from winning positions this season. He lost 9-8 to Allen after leading 8-6 in the final of the Northern Ireland Open, then the same thing happened against Robertson in the final of the English Open just a few weeks later, and finally the worst defeat of all, from 9-4 up in the final of the Tour Championship, against Robertson again. They weren’t terrible collapses, like missing a bunch of easy balls or anything like that, but he just seemed to lose his usual killer instinct when he needed it the most. When you add the two more convincing final defeats he had against Trump and Brecel this season, there are some questions whether Higgins can stand up to the pressure if he has a genuine chance of winning this title. And some of the players who have caused those scars this season have landed in his quarter of the draw as well. As for his three final defeats at the Crucible between 2017 and 2019, I actually don’t think those are such a big deal. He wasn’t even the favourite on two of those occasions, and at best a slight favourite the third time. It will definitely be interesting to see what happens to him here.

For all the weird winners we’ve had this season, the breakthrough of Luca Brecel was a bit more logical, considering he is just getting to what used to be the best years for a snooker player. That age has increased pretty dramatically in recent years, but part of the reason for that may just be a particularly weak generation that is unable to fully push the older players away. I am happy to see at least one player reaching a new level though. Honestly, I thought it would come sooner for Brecel, as he had already won his first major title back in 2017. He followed that up with a couple of decent seasons, but then lost his way somewhat in the two seasons prior to this one. You probably know that I don’t rate the Home Nations events too highly, but they are still decent titles to win. Apart from his win in the Scottish Open, he also had an impressive run to the final of the UK Championship, beating some strong players along the way. And he played alright in the Tour Championship as well, showing himself to be ready for the longer matches here. He will need to be, because he has never won a match at the Crucible before. He has generally cut out the losses in qualifying and in the opening round of events now, so it will be interesting to see if he can do the same here, especially as this is the first year where everyone really expects him to win. He seems to have found a decent balance in his game now, still playing very aggressively, but not to the point where it becomes ridiculous. The next test for him is whether he can do it over 17 days, and with all the mini setbacks and momentum shifts that inevitably happen over the course of a World Championship. For me, it’s maybe a year or two too early for him, but you never know.

Kyren Wilson is one of the biggest disappointments of the season for me. Okay, sometimes you play alright and the titles still elude you, but if Robert Milkins and Joe Perry are winning them, Wilson really has no excuse. He comes here as the 5th seed, but with the points from his World final two years ago now coming off, it’s doubtful whether he will stay as high. I once thought he could become Selby’s successor in terms of style of play and perhaps even results, but he is 30 now, and still only on two ranking titles of any worth. He could be forgiven if he was at least winning some of the minor ones, but he hasn’t been. Arguably his best result of the season is his run to the semi-finals of the UK Championship, followed by his run to the final in Gibraltar. Is the best still to come? History would suggest so. The Crucible is by far his best venue, having reached at least the quarter-finals for six editions in a row now, and the one-table setup in three of those. We could talk about his underwhelming effort in the final in 2020, or his pathetic collapse against Murphy last year, but let’s focus on the positives instead. It’s the kind of consistency no other player has really shown at the Crucible recently, and I suspect the longer matches could be the main reason for that. He is not exactly the most fluent player, so it helps him to have some extra time to play himself into the match. And while I think his nickname is pretty poor, there is some truth in it I suppose. Players who tend not to give up are much favoured in this format. Getting Ding in the 1st round is a pretty nasty draw though, and he might need to play very well right from the start to avoid going out early this time.

I think Yan Bingtao has now probably taken over Wilson’s mantle as Selby’s potential successor, but I am not entirely sure whether that’s a compliment or not. What I mean by that is that he has begun to rely extremely heavily on his tactical play, to the point of losing any kind of fluency he had as a teenager. His safety is actually really good, but getting involved in lots of slow and fragmented frames takes its toll, so it needs to be used to complement a strong scoring game, rather than as the main weapon. In terms of results, he hasn’t been able to produce any success equivalent to winning the Masters this season, but I would say his season has been decent nonetheless. We’ve seen him at the business end of events quite a few times, including a run to the final of the German Masters. He did lose that final 9-0, but I wouldn’t necessarily draw any conclusions from that. A few frames could have gone either way early on, and then Zhao was able to raise his game once he was comfortably in front. Yan tried his best to make something happen, but it just wasn’t his day. The important thing is not to let something like that become a pattern for him. Could he win the World title this year? He is still only 22, which makes him the second youngest player in the tournament, so there is definitely no pressure on him to win it in the very near future. He definitely has all the supporting elements one needs to do well, so it’s just the consistent and fluent scoring that is missing. That ability to beat someone 13-5 and save some energy for the business end of the tournament. But I guess his opening match will already tell us a lot, because he really should be winning that one quite comfortably.

Zhao Xintong has been the most pleasant surprise of the season so far. If someone had told me before the season started that a young Chinese player would win two major events, I would have guessed Yan for sure. Zhao probably wouldn’t even have been my second choice. His game was way too attacking for his own good. To be fair, he hasn’t suddenly changed his shot selection that much, but just cutting out those few shots that hurt your chances over the course of a match helps tremendously. He is also making more from his chances, which was particularly evident at the business end of the UK Championship and the German Masters, his two successes this season. There is nothing to criticise really. He seems to really enjoy snooker, even the tactical side of it, and he seems like someone who is keen to become even better. He spoke about that after his win in York, suggesting he could be a force at the Crucible as well. Normally, someone who wins two major titles in a season would indeed be going into the World Championship as one of the big favourites, but one thing against him here is still his relative inexperience, especially at the Crucible. He has only played here once before, losing to Selby in the opening round. I think he will love his experience this time though, and the draw has been quite kind to him as well. One thing is for sure, if he plays as well as he did in the UK Championship, he will be very difficult to beat over multiple sessions.

And that just leaves the top 4 seeds. Not the most reliable top 4 we’ve ever had going into the tournament, but I will still single them out as the four big favourites here.

Let’s start with Mark Selby, the defending champion. I was surprised to learn about his mental issues, especially the fact that it had been going on for years, because his snooker results don’t seem to have suffered much. Well, apart from this season, probably his worst one in more than 15 years, although the most important part is of course still to come. When last season started, it was immediately obvious that Selby was on a mission, trying to make up for throwing a potential World title away at the end of the previous season with that dreadful defeat against an out-of-sorts O’Sullivan. He played really strongly from start to finish all season, adding a 4th World title to his résumé. It’s been a complete reversal this season, with mediocre results throughout, and only a single appearance at the business end of any tournament that carried ranking points. I think the fact that he didn’t even manage to qualify for the Players Championship tells a lot. It’s something that would have been unthinkable in previous seasons. So, why would he be among the favourites here? Well, apart from being defending champion, I think one statistic that no one can overlook is the fact that Selby has won four of the last eight World Championships, which is the same as the rest of the world put together. He has his ups and downs, but he remains an extremely tough player to beat. He has been the best tactician and the best pressure player in the game for a decade now, and his ability to compete over multiple sessions is almost unrivalled. His potting and scoring come and go though, so I guess any chance he might have here will rely on that coming together for him at the right time. There are a couple of tricky players around him in the draw, but if he survives that and makes it to the quarter-finals, I think it could mean trouble for everyone else.

Ronnie O'Sullivan comes here as the world number 1, a situation he is quite familiar with. I was actually quite surprised to find he has only won one tournament since winning the 2020 World Championship. He seems to be doing very well in most events he plays in, but somehow the titles have been missing in the last two seasons. I guess it’s similar to Higgins in a way. It shows some great consistency, but he has also lost six finals in this period, and two of those were against players the average person probably wouldn’t even have heard of. He’s also had some tough draws, coming up against the likes of Higgins and Robertson several times this season, while in the past the draw did open up for him somewhat in a few of the big tournaments. His finest moment this season was beating Robertson in the final of the World Grand Prix, in a match where he had to play superbly to come back from behind. He definitely still has the game, there is no doubt about that, and he seems to be in a pretty good place mentally as well. He is still skipping a few of the lesser events, but he seems to be playing a bit more than he did in the past. For instance, he made the trip to Gibraltar for the first time in his career, which is something I definitely wasn’t expecting from him. There will again be all the talk about his possibly equalling Hendry’s record of seven World titles. It’s bound to add some additional pressure than no one else in the tournament really has to deal with. Whenever he is involved in a tournament, most of the attention is inevitably on him. It’s not always a bad thing though, because having the crowd on your side can be just as important. And his quarter of the draw also includes a few players he has a really dominant record against. Should be fun to see how it plays out.

Judd Trump would probably have been in a category of his own if I’d done a preview like this last year, having won 11 events over the course of the two seasons that preceded the tournament. Not so this year though. It’s funny, it may be an underwhelming season for Trump, but it’s still a very strong one by anyone else’s standard. He still managed to thrash everyone at the Champion of Champions, and then produced some fine scoring in the final of the Turkish Masters to add a big ranking title as well. There was also a good run to the final of the Welsh Open, as well as a few other decent results. He’s spoken about his jadedness with snooker this season, and possibly even taking some time away from the game, but I think most of his problems are probably self-inflicted. I think he has just played way too much recently. Since he almost automatically qualifies for all the invitational events and stuff like the Players Championship and the Tour Championship, does he really need to play in every best-of-7 event on the calendar? I guess it’s understandable in a way. If you’re winning everything, you try to maximise your success while the form is still there. But it’s probably not the best decision in the long term. As long as you’re not taking it to the extreme like Ding is, I think skipping some events is a good call for the top players. So, is Trump’s game in a good enough shape at the moment to possibly add another World title? Looking at only the most recent events, it just might be. It’s moving in the right direction anyway, so there is half a chance he might have timed it perfectly. An in-form Trump has been almost untouchable for the competition in recent seasons, with only Robertson able to match his level at times. He is a terrific front-runner, with the killer instinct to close out games quite quickly, and a level of maturity now that sees him through any bad patches.

And we’ll conclude with Neil Robertson on this occasion. He has definitely been the player of the season with four titles, which I believe is the most he has ever won in a single season. I think it’s fair to say he was let off the hook a few times along the way, but that’s partly down to applying the pressure whenever he found himself behind in big games. He came from 8-6 down to beat Higgins in the final of the English Open, from 9-4 down to beat him in the final of the Tour Championship, and from an impossible position to beat Williams in the semi-finals of the Masters, before going on to beat Hawkins in the final. Definitely a good sign ahead of the World Championship, where comebacks like that happen quite frequently. With all the success Robertson has had over the years, I guess winning only one World title is starting to look more and more like an anomaly. When he won in 2010, he was mainly known as a great potter who had developed some tactical game through experience, but these days things are a little bit different. He has the all-round game, but the one thing that stands out more than anything else is his fantastic scoring. When he finds his rhythm, there is no one better than he is at the moment. He has the game, the confidence, the experience, the temperament… So, what is holding him back from winning a second World title? Who knows, maybe he puts himself under more pressure at the Crucible than he does anywhere else? He’s also come across some players playing out of their skin against him, but that’s no excuse really. It’s the World Championship, so you can expect your opponents to be sharp. He definitely can't complain about his draw though, getting arguably the easiest qualifier, potentially followed by the easiest seed in the 2nd round. Robertson has had a few pretty infamous moments over the years where he’s played very slowly and taken ages on one or two shots in particular. When Selby does something like that, there is always that feeling that he might be doing it deliberately. But for Robertson, I often get the feeling he goes into a weird mental paralysis at times and loses his way somewhat. It doesn’t happen when things are really going for him though, so we’ll see if those danger signs come up at any point.


I think that just about covers it… I have to say I am not really impressed with the state of the calendar at the moment. With the Chinese events gone, the majority of what’s left is the best-of-7 crap, and most of the tournaments seem pretty soulless and generic. And then there are these weird artificial series of events that have little to do with one another, and additional money is awarded to the winner for no additional work. It’s a little bizarre if you ask me. That’s why I’m happy we are back with the longer matches here, as that’s still by far the most interesting and enjoyable format.

As for the question posed in the thread’s title, my gut feeling isn’t telling me much on this occasion. As I said above, each of the top 4 players has questions about them, so I think the number of players who could potentially win is reasonably large. Could be a Yan Bingtao type of player that is slightly under the radar here. But, in the absence of anything else, I have to vote rationally and go for Robertson.

Here’s hoping for a good Championship. I know I will likely enjoy it whatever happens, and I wish everyone the same.

[DeanH]

oh!, get the cup of tea and a few dunking biscuits and settle down to reading another great Odrl assessment of the upcoming WSC

love the opening "shorter than" LOL

[Thewho1975]

I think Wilson is due

[j6uk]

I’ve got tenners on:
Un nooh 125/1
Stevens 150/1
Vafaei 100/1
Wakeline 300/1
Hugill 500/1

[JimMalone]

I‘m a bit late here. My gut feeling pretournament was Trump, so I‘ll say him.

But as I said in the WC Thread I can imagine plenty of players this year.

[JimMalone]

For all the weird winners we’ve had this season, the breakthrough of Luca Brecel was a bit more logical, considering he is just getting to what used to be the best years for a snooker player. That age has increased pretty dramatically in recent years, but part of the reason for that may just be a particularly weak generation that is unable to fully push the older players away. I am happy to see at least one player reaching a new level though. Honestly, I thought it would come sooner for Brecel, as he had already won his first major title back in 2017. He followed that up with a couple of decent seasons, but then lost his way somewhat in the two seasons prior to this one. You probably know that I don’t rate the Home Nations events too highly, but they are still decent titles to win. Apart from his win in the Scottish Open, he also had an impressive run to the final of the UK Championship, beating some strong players along the way. And he played alright in the Tour Championship as well, showing himself to be ready for the longer matches here. He will need to be, because he has never won a match at the Crucible before. He has generally cut out the losses in qualifying and in the opening round of events now, so it will be interesting to see if he can do the same here, especially as this is the first year where everyone really expects him to win. He seems to have found a decent balance in his game now, still playing very aggressively, but not to the point where it becomes ridiculous. The next test for him is whether he can do it over 17 days, and with all the mini setbacks and momentum shifts that inevitably happen over the course of a World Championship. For me, it’s maybe a year or two too early for him, but you never know.

I guess that's the one player, where I disagree with your placement. For me Brecel still hasn't shown enough consistency or brillance, therefore I would have put him in the "outside chance group" at best. I know that when he is on fire, he can beat anybody, but over 5 days in long matches I just don't see it. He is a less dangerous, not scoring that well version of Zhao Xintong.
Also would have put Maguire in one group lesser, as I don't really give him even an outside chance to be honest.

Once again a great preview.

[balkend]

Very Nice piece Odri , Jim Malone has taken a leaf out of your book !

[fkhan]

Interesting. MJW didn't get a single vote but he is in the SF.

[balkend]

MJW , a classic example of coming in under the radar

[Nifty50]

Interesting. MJW didn't get a single vote but he is in the SF.

I voted for Robbo but bet Mark at 33/1 each way. Fingers crossed but Trump will be tough match if he turns it on.
Also got a fiver on a Ronnie v Williams final at 50/1.