Neal Foulds snooker column: ITV and Eurosport pundit previews this week's Tour Championship

If you’re one of the eight men playing for a first prize of £150,000 at this week’s Tour Championship, you can rest assured that you’ve earned the right. You only make this illustrious field by winning tournaments or, like John Higgins, going damn close over and over again.

This week is all about the best of the best, the sport’s elite pitting their wits against each other for a huge prize in a tournament already holding a great amount of prestige, despite the event still being in its relative infancy. Snooker fans are in for a real treat over the next seven days.

There are so many stories to the week, kicking off with Judd Trump who has spent the last couple of years dominating the tour but who needed to win the Turkish Masters just to qualify. It doesn’t matter who you are, this is a hard event to get in, so much so that current world champion Mark Selby is missing from this year’s field.

Trump eyes up big late-season prizes

Trump came good just in time and I think he’s the man to beat this week. Ever since he turned it on in Turkey, battling through the early rounds before sparkling in the final, I’ve felt Trump was peaking at the right time, with this tournament and the World Championship two marquee events on the calendar to close out the season.

I’m not convinced he’s quite hit his straps yet this season, but he’s still won twice and I thought he shaped well enough in Gibraltar when trying to win there for a third year in a row. I’m sure he’d have liked to have come out on top again, but not as much as he’d like to win this week or in Sheffield, and I think he’s had one eye on this stretch of the season for a while now.

He can’t have too many complaints about his draw, either, with Luca Brecel deserving of his place in the line-up following his UK Championship final defeat and Scottish Open victory in December, but really poor since Christmas.

Given the recent head-to-head record, you’d also think Trump would be eyeing a possible semi-final with Higgins with glee. It’s one I’d make him favourite for, of course, but I thought there were some promising signs from the Scot last week who might not be too far away from producing his best snooker again. It’s the match I hope we see because I think it could be a terrific clash.

Xintong tops the bill but remains hard to predict

Like Brecel, Zhao Xintong booked his place in Wales with a couple of big punches, rather than any great level of consistency. That’s only half the story, though, as Zhao has barely won a match all season, aside from his stunning victories at the UK Championship and German Masters.

When he’s been good, Zhao has been astonishingly good, but his worst has struggled to beat just about anyone and what we can expect this week is impossible to predict. Look in the dictionary for Jekyll and Hyde and it might as well read Zhao Xintong.

That’s not to say he won’t come again. I’m more than sure he’ll be fine – backing up his York win in Germany proved that – but he’s in a different bracket of player now and with that comes different pressures. He’s still very young and will adjust, and nobody was really that surprised when he won the UK Championship as we all knew the talent was there.

Zhao will head to Sheffield next month as a seeded player for the World Championship, but he’s still yet to win a match at the Crucible and I wonder if Higgins might have too much for him over two sessions here. I’d make the latter favourite in what is an intriguing match.

Lower down the draw, you must give so much respect to defending champion Neil Robertson who was brilliant 12 months ago and has won three more titles this year, including the Players Championship and the Masters.

It’s hard to find fault with Robertson nowadays who has enjoyed another fabulous season and who we know has the game to thrive in these longer matches. He missed the Turkish Masters I’m sure with a view to holding his form through to the end of the season, and last week’s blowout at the Gibraltar Open should have put him spot on for this.

I don’t predict an easy match for him against Mark Allen, though. Allen is a player I rate highly and I still think there might be a big performance just around the corner from him, whether it’s this week or in Sheffield. He’s hard to work out sometimes, but is very, very dangerous.

His season has rather nosedived since he won the Northern Ireland Open, and I know how much winning in Belfast meant to him. It’s not the first time this has happened with Allen, but he beat a strong field in the Champion of Champions last season and we know he is capable of great things when he puts it all together.

He really should have picked up the £150,000 Bet Victor bonus in Gibraltar last week, as he only needed to convert his 3-1 lead over Robert Milkins to pip the aforementioned Higgins to the prize.

What happened afterwards was another crazy chapter in a crazy season, but Allen will be determined to bank a few quid over the next few days. His tie with Robertson is certainly as interesting one, perhaps the tie of the draw.

O'Sullivan and Williams set for latest dust-up

I can’t finish without touching on Mark Williams against Ronnie O’Sullivan in yet another clash between two titans of the famous Class of 92. Williams is here courtesy of his British Open win way back last summer, O’Sullivan having won the World Grand Prix just before Christmas.

Williams has just celebrated his 47th birthday, but age really is no barrier in this sport and O’Sullivan is guaranteed to head to next month’s World Championship as world number one. As defending champion, Selby will be number one seed, but for O’Sullivan to be back on top of the world again is a brilliant achievement.

I’m really looking forward to working on ITV again for this event, and I must tease a nice feature that my colleague Stephen Hendry has done with Williams ahead of the Tour Championship. Mark clearly enjoys his life away from the table nowadays, and who can blame him after all he’s achieved. As ever, Mark was great fun and I think viewers will enjoy what they see.

Back on the table, the Welshman will have his work cut out against O’Sullivan who dominates the head-to-head record 32-8. That’s a damning statistic, though perhaps not quite as damning as the fact he hasn’t beaten O’Sullivan since 2014.

Finally, a word on that man Milkins who claimed his first ranking title win at the Gibraltar Open. I certainly didn’t see that one coming, not after the season he’s endured and the eventful time of it he had in Turkey.

It's been well-publicised that Milkins had too much to drink at the opening ceremony for that event, but I know he’s sorry for what happened and can probably expect a hefty fine to make a dent in his Gibraltar winnings.

After everything, and at this late stage in his career, I was really pleased to see him finally become a ranking winner. I like him – he’s a normal sort of bloke who likes a drink and likes a bet, and while he’s made mistakes, he’s been the first to admit to them and say sorry.

Once again, in a season that has at times defied belief, Milkins has shown that it can be done. All throughout the year we’ve witnessed big shock after big shock and while Zhao and Brecel were minor surprises, Milkins winning in Gibraltar and Fan Zhengyi at the European Masters were remarkable stories.

We won’t get that this week, with big guns only in Wales, but who knows about the World Championship in Sheffield. I’m taking nothing for granted.

More from Neal Foulds

• Trump peaking in time for Sheffield
• Changing times but O'Sullivan still strong
• Robertson rules but for how long
• Snooker thriving ahead of big clash
• Masters delivers tournament for the ages
• Ronnie ready for Masters bid
• Remarkable O'Sullivan thrills once again
• A star is born as Zhao realises potential
• Roll on York with Selby set to shine
• The best is yet to come from Robertson
• Allen prevails but Higgins a true great
• Belfast braced for Trump title defence