Richard Mann tipped Mark Allen to win last year's UK Championship at 16/1 – he nominates three bets this time around, headed by seven-time winner Ronnie O'Sullivan.
Snooker betting tips: UK Championship
2pts Ronnie O'Sullivan to win the UK Championship at 5/1 (General)
1pt e.w. Jack Lisowski to win the UK Championship at 25/1 (General)
0.5pt e.w Tom Ford to win the UK Championship at 66/1 (General)
RONNIE O’SULLIVAN will be making plenty of headlines in the coming weeks, with his documentary, Ronnie O’Sullivan: Edge of Everything having been released in the last few days. With the limelight firmly stuck on snooker’s brightest star, he is backed to taste more UK Championship success in York a week on Sunday.
There aren’t many tournaments that O’Sullivan doesn’t dominate the roll of honour of, but the UK Championship has been particularly kind to the 47-year-old whose last triumph, in 2018, was a record seventh win in York. The great Steve Davis only managed six, Stephen Hendry five.
The truth of the matter is that the UK Championship has always been very hard to win. Yes, the Masters might comprise the top 16 players in the world, but it still only means winning four matches. The World Championship is termed the snooker marathon, but the top 16 are seeded and thus able to start against opponents who have been slugging it out in the qualifiers, nerves frayed to the maximum, just to reach the Crucible.
The UK Championship has now changed to a similar format, but that wasn’t the case in 2018 when O’Sullivan had to win six matches before beating Mark Allen in the final, nor in 2017 and 2014 when he also did it the hard way. Coming at the end of the year, on the back of a long run of big events and with Christmas fast approaching, it has needed O’Sullivan to maintain his form and hold a laser-sharp focus to enjoy so much success in this particular tournament.
O'Sullivan saves his best for York
That is significant. O’Sullivan has often been accused of turning the taps on and off at the whim of his mood, but as far as the UK Championship has been concerned, he has always given the event his full attention and more often than not, produced something close to his best snooker. Even since 2018, when his attentions have turned towards chasing records at the Crucible, O’Sullivan has still shown up well in York.
Last year, O’Sullivan made seamless progress to the quarter-finals until simply failing to fire against Ding Junhui in their quarter-final. The official ticket sellers had double sold most of the seats for O’Sullivan’s table that afternoon, and all in all the whole day was a bit of a disaster. In 2021, O’Sullivan reached the last eight before Kyren Wilson played out of his skin to win a terrific match.
O’Sullivan has made no secret of his love affair with this tournament. He enjoys York, with its rich history, winding, cobbled streets you can easily lose yourself in, and relaxed coffee shops making it the perfect escape for someone who has resolved to enjoy his time away from the table just as much as he does on it. York’s proximity to some beautiful countryside means he can easily get away and do some running between matches, too.
All of the above can be put forward as reasons why O’Sullivan enjoys his time in York, and might then play good snooker while there, but the results speak for themselves. He’s the most successful player in the history of the tournament, and easily the most successful at this particular venue – the Barbican Centre. It’s not rocket science, excuse the pun, to think he’ll show up well again this year.
Though he received plenty of stick for pulling out of the recent Champion of Champions, in snooker terms at least, he’ll now arrive in York a fresh animal, an angle I really like with O’Sullivan at this stage of his career, particularly at the end of a long year and with commitments away from the table entitled to have taken up plenty of his energy.
If you look at O’Sullivan’s performances over the last few years, he’s tended to peak for the really big ones – think the 2022 World Championship, 2022 Hong Kong Masters, and the recent Shanghai Masters, another event he has always targeted some way out.
With so much attention on him at present, he’ll no doubt be desperate to stay in the limelight and in this tournament for as long as he can, just as was the case when the cameras followed him around Sheffield 24/7 for the making of said documentary in the spring of 2022.
It would be typical of O’Sullivan to steal the show again, just as hype around him is at its greatest.
Form pointers in Ronnie's favour
O'Sullivan certainly has very solid form claims, too. He beat John Higgins, Mark Selby and world champion Luca Brecel when surging to his fifth Shanghai Masters title in September, the latter pair having contested the World Championship final only months earlier. Since then, he has kept himself fresh, but played well until a red-hot Zhang Anda beat him in the last four of the International Championship.
Some very kind words from some brilliant people. Thank you so much! pic.twitter.com/65K1Bt8WGg
— Ronnie O'Sullivan (@ronnieo147) November 22, 2023
When he’s really needed it, his game has looked in pretty good shape, and I think he finds himself in a favourable half of the draw, in and around Higgins and Neil Robertson. As already noted, he beat Higgins from a long way behind in Shanghai, while Robertson is struggling badly for results at present. Further down the line, I’d fancy him to exact revenge over Zhang should they meet again, with Brecel and Ali Carter not faring any better than O’Sullivan this term. Anthony McGill is far from easy first up, but the Scot has a largely moderate record in this event.
Armed with a good draw, an unmatched record in this event, and the likelihood he will be keen to show himself in a positive light in the coming days, O’Sullivan looks good business at 5/1.
I’ve spent long enough arguing why O’Sullivan can notch his eighth UK Championship win, based on form and other reasons, but however convinced or not you are by The Rocket, it’s hard to muster too much enthusiasm about many of the other big-name players in the draw. Barring defending champion, Allen, Judd Trump and perhaps Barry Hawkins, this is a field full of big names who are struggling for anything close to their best form.
The aforementioned Robertson is battling to hold his place in the top 16, a dramatic fall from grace for the best player in the world just a couple of seasons ago. Higgins is battling his demons in the latter stages of tournaments, having again failed to replicate his early-round form against Allen in the semi-finals of the Champion of Champions. Since Shanghai, Brecel has barely won a match, and Selby hasn’t been much better.
From O’Sullivan’s half of the draw, Shaun Murphy was of most interest at 16/1. Murphy enjoyed a golden run of form towards the end of last season, reaching the final of the Welsh Open before winning the Players Championship and Tour Championship at a canter, confirming he remains a top player when on song.
Things haven’t gone as smoothly so far this term, victory at the Championship League apart, but there were promising signs at the Champion of Champions when he thrashed Gary Wilson before taking early control against Trump. He would eventually lose that match, but didn’t do a great deal wrong against a world-class opponent in inspired form. Expect the 2008 UK champion to take another step forward in York.
Trump and Allen go to the well again
On paper at least, the top half of the draw is dominated by Allen and Trump, seemingly on a collision course to renew hostilities in the semi-finals. If only snooker was that simple.
Trump will start as tournament favourite having been right back to his best in recent weeks. It’s hard to do justice to what Trump has achieved so far this season, reaching five finals already and winning three, and it’s clear his domination of the game from late 2018 to early 2021 was by no means a false dawn. His long game is back, his scoring never really went away, and his character in pressure moments of big matches is outstanding.
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But there are reasons to be cool on him this week. For starters, York has not been a happy hunting ground for Trump since he won this event in 2014. He was a beaten finalist in 2020, but that was when the event was held behind closed doors in Milton Keynes, and in his last seven visits to the Barbican, he hasn’t made it past the fourth round.
Given the incredibly heavy workload he has had to bear so far this season – and that we know top snooker players can rarely stay at their absolute peak for too long – I can’t muster any enthusiasm for the 4/1 currently on offer. Perhaps he can regroup after Allen trounced him 10-3 in the Champion of Champions final, but it’s a big ask, and I’m happy to look elsewhere.
Allen is a little harder to weigh up. His form hadn’t been there until everything suddenly clicked into gear in Bolton at a tournament that has been kind to him over the years, and he ran out a commanding winner. His scoring was typically excellent all week, and he probably mixed attack and defence better than he has for a while.
There was plenty of criticism for Allen even when he was enjoying his most successful season ever last term, many observers feeling that he’d gone too defensive, but he won three big events, including this one when outbattling Ding Junhui in a final he seemed certain to lose when trailing 6-1. Perhaps he returns in even better form this year – it certainly looked that way last week.
Having advised Allen on these pages at 16/1 last year, it’s hard to discard the Northern Irishman this time around, especially given the reasons stated above, but at the time of writing 12/1 is the best available, despite facing a rematch with Ding in what is clearly very tough opening match.
Elsewhere in the top half, Hawkins is the one who appeals on form at 18/1, much more so than the struggling Kyren Wilson who is only a couple of points bigger. A possible last-16 clash with Selby tempers enthusiasm for Hawkins in the outright market, though it’s a match I most certainly think he can win, just as he did when they met at the European Masters earlier in the season.
Lisowski taken to triumph at big odds
Another potential blockbuster in the last 16 is Trump versus JACK LISOWSKI, but I’m going to chance the latter in the outright market at 25/1.
That price is reflective of his likely meeting with Trump, but Trump lost to Nigel Bond here a few years ago, demonstrating that nothing is set in stone, and Lisowski is more than capable of getting the better of his friend if it comes to it.
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Trump dominates the head-to-head against Lisowski (13-8), but the more recent damage has been done by Trump in finals when, as we know, he has generally become such a tough nut to crack. When the pair met in the last 16 of the Shanghai Masters this season, Trump won, but only by a single frame.
Forgetting a potential clash with Trump for a moment, Lisowski is building is a pretty strong record at York.
In the last three years, he has reached the last eight twice, before losing in the semi-finals last year when that man Allen refused to be beaten and eventually prevailed in a deciding frame. In the previous rounds, Lisowski beat Murphy 6-1, Hossein Vafaei 6-2 and Xu Si 6-1. Course form carries plenty of weight with me at this tournament in particular, and Lisowski certainly ticks that box.
A run to quarter-finals of the British Open and then a semi-final finish in Northern Ireland confirms Lisowski’s game to be in good order this time around, and with 25/1 on offer, I’m happy to chance him to small stakes.
Another of the lesser lights with a decent record at this event is TOM FORD, a player now inside the top 16 following a fine start to the campaign which has seen him make a couple of quarter-finals and then finish runner-up at the valuable International Championship. That was a proper tournament and he lowered the colours of Selby and Hawkins en route to the final.
A heavy scorer who is fluent and deadly when in the balls, Ford has always promised to take his game to the next level and having also contested the final of the German Masters earlier in the year, it seems his big breakthrough might just be around the corner. Now up to number five on the 1 Year Ranking list, a major tournament success for Ford wouldn't surprise anybody.
That strong York record I referred to is highlighted by his semi-final loss to Ding last year, but we mustn’t forget that he enjoyed a fine run to the same stage in 2018, only for O’Sullivan’s date with destiny to stop Ford in his tracks. Looking back at last year’s effort, Higgins, Brecel, Joe Perry were among his victims.
The 40-year-old is most certainly capable of enjoying another deep run at a venue he clearly enjoys, and though his draw is full of potential obstacles, he’s at the stage in his career where he's not out of place in this company. I’ll chance him in the outright market at 66/1, while he has to be of significant interest in the quarter betting.
Posted at 1700 GMT on 23/11/2023
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