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Snooker betting tips: The Masters best bets and outright preview
Richard Mann ended 2022 with 16/1 and 25/1 returns – check out his outright preview for the 2023 Masters here.
Snooker betting tips: The Masters
3pts Neil Robertson to win the Masters at 9/2 (General)
1pt e.w. Mark Williams to win the Masters at 20/1 (Sky Bet 1/2 1,2)
Following a memorable World Darts Championship, Masters snooker takes centre stage at Alexandra Palace next week, where NEIL ROBERTSON is taken to successfully defend the title he claimed in brilliant fashion 12 months ago.
Robertson was imperious for most of last season, and he beat Jack Lisowski, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Williams before trouncing Barry Hawkins 10-4 in last year’s final, picking up his second Masters crown in the process.
When at his best, there are only a handful of the sport’s top players who can keep pace with Robertson, and recent signs are that he is once again coming to the boil ahead of a key part of the campaign.
Regular readers of these pages will know I’ve been expecting the Robertson surge to come for a while now, and in his defeat to Joe O’Connor in the semi-finals of the Scottish Open was a real kick in the stomach, given how the draw in Edinburgh had really opened up.
Nonetheless, he played well all week there and backed up those efforts with another last-four finish at the English Open, where it took a fine display from eventual winner, Mark Selby, to stop the Australian in his tracks in what was a high-quality contest.
His quarter-final win over Williams a day earlier was another top-class match where the Welshman made a 147 maximum break, only for Robertson’s three centuries and further breaks 97 and 73 to win out.
Robertson in 'a league of his own' ahead of Masters defence
Williams was quick to heap praise on Robertson after that match, insisting Robertson is in 'a league of his own’ at present and Selby spoke along similar lines when clearly thrilled to have managed a first win in eight over a rival who has dominated him for the last couple of years.
Another pointer to Robertson’s form is that he’s already up to 28 centuries for the season, despite missing the British Open. Robertson made 61 in total last term, and with a host of big tournaments to come, he is firmly on course to surpass that tally.
As such, it's clear that Robertson has his game in good working order at present and if tightening up in just a few areas – and Robertson was critical of his safety game after that aforementioned loss to O’Connor – I'm convinced he'll land a major prize before too long.
There are motivational factors to consider with Robertson, too. The Masters is obviously one of the most prestigious events on the calendar for any of the top players, but the 40-year-old is someone who does tend the target the very biggest tournaments.
Along with the Masters, Robertson won the Players Championship, Tour Championship and English Open, as well as reaching the final of the World Grand Prix, last season. With the World Grand Prix – an event he also won in 2020 – coming up in a couple weeks, it’s highly likely this month has been a big target of his for some time.
He’s not the only one who that applies to, of course, but it’s uncanny how many of the high-profile events Robertson has managed to peak for in recent years, and starting off against Shaun Murphy – whom he has a strong head-to-head record against (24-13) – on Sunday doesn’t appear too bad a draw for a tournament featuring the top 16 players in the world.
After that, either Kyren Wilson or a struggling Stuart Bingham would lay in wait, and though Robertson and Wilson have enjoyed some terrific meetings more recently, I’m pretty cool on the latter's chances this week given what I saw from him before Christmas.
Things would get tougher from there on in, but this is the Masters, and Judd Trump was visibly frustrated with his own game before Christmas, not so 2018 champion Mark Allen who reigned supreme at the Northern Ireland Open and UK Championship.
A semi-final clash with Allen would be one the savour, but it’s a match I’d fancy Robertson to win and in the belief his very best form isn’t far away, he must be backed at 9/2 (General).
Can Trump find his best form again?
As for Trump, those frustrations probably have more to do with a lack of consistency in his game, quite the opposite from what he saw from him when he dominated the sport from late 2018 to early 2021.
Trump has still managed four quarter-finals this term, as well as finishing runner-up at the Champion of Champions, but in all of those events he mixed his very best form with some poor displays that cost him badly. His last-eight defeat to Thepchaiya Un-Nooh at the Scottish Open was a particularly painful defeat.
A player of his class could easily bounce back next week, but I don’t think he should be the same price as Robertson and at 12/1, Allen would make more appeal for anyone wanting to oppose Robertson in the top half of the draw.
Allen has been the player of the season so far, but he’s already endured a heavy workload with lots of close, hard matches and at the back of my mind I do wonder if his form might tail off at some stage.
If it doesn’t, the Northern Irishman is a serious player in London, but I reckon Robertson has more upside, for all he is considerably shorter in the betting.
The star attraction in the bottom section is O’Sullivan who has won this famous event seven times already.
I’m not overly concerned about O’Sullivan's moderate form in ranking events this season, and he played well until having a very bad day at the office against Ding Junhui in their UK Championship quarter-final.
Prior to that, O’Sullivan thrived in front of a record crowd at the Hong Masters, beating Robertson on his way to a final victory over Marco Fu. He was dominant when beating Trump in the final of the Champion of Champions, too.
Two of the most valuable prizes on the calendar won confirm O’Sullivan’s game is still there and the one-table set-up of the Masters, in such a prestigious event, could well spring him back to his best.
A slight concern would be that O’Sullivan has only won two matches in this tournament in the last two years, having also skipped the Masters in 2020, so how highly this week now ranks with his own ambitions is open to question to some degree.
Take Williams over O'Sullivan from bottom half
Perhaps I’m nit-picking there, though if he does beat English Open runner-up, Luca Brecel, first up, he won’t find MARK WILLIAMS an easy hurdle to cross should they meet in the quarter-finals. That would be another match to savour.
In fact, Williams looks to have plenty going for him and from the bottom half, he’s the one I want to add to the staking plan.
That English Open quarter-final with Robertson demonstrated that he remains capable of producing high-class snooker, and he only lost out by a single frame when Allen beat him in the last eight in Belfast earlier in the campaign.
If things fall right, a very bold showing from Williams is possible and he really should have beaten Robertson in the semi-finals here last year, losing in the deciding frame despite his opponent at one stage needing two snookers.
Had Williams got over the line in that match, I suspect he would have gone all the way and claimed his third Masters crown.
What it did prove is that the 47-year-old can still mix it with the best on the big stage, a point backed up by his last four finish at the World Championship a few months later.
Williams is a heavy favourite to beat David Gilbert first up, after which tougher tests against the likes of O’Sullivan, and the perhaps John Higgins or Mark Selby would follow.
Williams beat Higgins here last year, and though Selby’s credentials are sound following his English Open success just before Christmas, his more recent Masters record is ordinary for a player of his calibre.
Furthermore, Williams is one of the few players who can mix it with on-song Selby in all departments, and at 20/1 compared to 6/1 about Selby, Williams looks the value play from the bottom half.
Posted at 1520 GMT on 04/01/23
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