Sporting Life contributors including Neal Foulds and Richard Mann provide their best bets for the UK Championship, from a range of markets.
Jack the lad ready to become a man
CLICK HERE to back Lisowski for the UK Championship
One player I'm really looking forward to seeing in York is Jack Lisowski who is always a treat to watch and could be really dangerous if he can suddenly click into form.
Clearly, Lisowski has endured a poor season to date, but I'd be tempted to stick with him in the knowledge this is one of the most talented players in the game and having seen him come so close to claiming that elusive first ranking title last season. In fact, Lisowski made three finals in all last term, and would surely have converted one of those chances had he not kept bumping into his good mate Judd Trump who really was untouchable at times.
Lisowski also made the last eight of this event and though he can sometimes frustrate, there is no doubting his natural ability and an attacking game that will always make him such a force to be reckoned with when he is playing well.
He hasn't really played well in the last few weeks, but he won't stay quiet for too long and having looked a much more mature character in the last 12 months and celebrated his 30th birthday in the summer, he could yet enjoy a good time of it before Christmas.
There are some big tournaments coming up, ones in which Lisowski has enjoyed success at in the past, and where better to start kickstart his season than the first Triple Crown event of the campaign. I quite like the look of his draw in York too, one which should at least afford him the opportunity to find his feet, and don't rule out a deep run if he can find some confidence in the early rounds and build a little bit of momentum.
Zhou Yuelong to win the first quarter
At this stage, betting opportunities for the UK Championship are thin on the ground, and perhaps understandably so this time give the ongoing Champion of Champions, but one or two firms have priced up the 'to win each quarter' markets and there appears to be a shade of value in the top section in the shape of ZHOU YUELONG.
Missing the top-16 bracket by one place and failing to negotiate the final qualifying round for the World Championship was a disappointing end to last season for Yuelong, but he has started this campaign well, reaching the quarter-final of the British Open before losing 4-3 to Elliot Slessor. Yuelong has cemented that positive start with German and European Masters qualification in recent weeks so another deep run in the UK Championships is by no means out of the question.
A devastating break builder when on his game, Yuelong possesses the raw ability to reach the top-10 ranked players echelon and he dusted himself down pretty well after that sobering 9-0 drubbing to Neil Robertson in the 2020 European Masters Final. The brilliant Australian is again his main barrier to success at York and there could be one or two battle scars given it was Robertson who also thwarted Yuelong in the semi-final of this event a year ago, but having crunched the numbers, the Chinse should be a slightly shorter price than is currently on offer to successfully negotiate this section.
Even Yuelong’s 'worst-case scenario' passage of Chen Zifan, Mark Davis, Anthony McGill, Robertson and Mark Williams is a shade under 16/1 priced up to 100% based on my pre-tournament player ratings and his true price with me to land this quarter is 0.09 or 10/1, which puts Yuelong in as clear-third favourite behind the 6/5 (0.45) jolly Robertson. Therefore, the 14/1 available with Sporting Index looks very appealing.
Boil over on the cards on second quarter?
The betting for the second quarter of the draw is dominated by Ronnie O'Sullivan and Kyren Wilson, which makes sense, but there are a host of dangerous operators in that section of the draw, some old and a few chasing that breakthrough run at a major event such as this.
Starting with the old, Stuart Bingham needs a UK Championship win for his full compliment of Triple Crown titles following victory in the World Championship in 2015 and his 2020 Masters success. And then there's Ali Carter, twice a runner-up at the Crucible and once at the Masters. Both can still pack a punch, if not quite as hard in more recent times.
Current Masters champion Yan Bingtao is the obvious alternative to the O'Sullivan and Wilson – and he was a semi-finalist here two years ago – while Mark King went deep at recent the English Open and Gary Wilson in the season-starting British Open.
There is certainly the potential for this quarter to be more competitive than the betting suggests, and I wouldn't be surprised if we had a complete boil over here, with NOPPON SAENGKHAM and LIAM HIGHFIELD worth a stab to win the section at 50/1 and 80/1 respectively.
Saengkham really is a much better player than his recent results would suggest and he took Mark Selby to a deciding frame at the Crucible two years ago, while he recently qualified for the German and European Masters with defeats of John Higgins, Jak Jones and Si Jiahui.
He might just be working his way into a little bit of form and certainly has the ability to take advantage of a decent enough draw if producing the sort of snooker that saw him beat Jackson Page and Anthony McGill in York in 2019.
Highfield is another who won't be overawed by facing the similarly free-flowing Jamie Wilson first up, and though things get tougher thereafter, I'm convinced this heavy scorer is capable of mixing it with the best when gaining more experience.
Lack of experience probably cost him when he met Judd Trump at the Crucible last season, but we saw a glimpse of his rich talent in that match and a recent victory over Jack Lisowski was another timely reminder.
The UK Championship has made household names of relative unknowns in the past – 2015 semi-finalist David Grace a prime example – and perhaps this year's tournament can deliver another giant-killing story to remember.
Don't desert deadly Ding
DING JUNHUI has endured a particularly difficult couple of years since winning this title for a third time in 2019, but now may be the time to support him at big prices and he's backed to win quarter four.
The Chinese star has suffered more than many of his peers during the pandemic, forced to spend 10 months without his wife and children. No wonder he's struggled to get back to the levels he reached here, when beating Ronnie O'Sullivan and compatriot Yan Bingtao before back-to-back centuries completed a 10-6 final win against Stephen Maguire.
Ding managed to spend five months with his family after the World Championship, and they're expected to join him in Sheffield soon. We might then be within our rights to expect improvement in his game, and it's not like he's been far away. Ding lost 5-4 to Mark Davis in qualifying for the German Masters, there was no disgrace in losing to a peak-form John Higgins in the English Open, nor in a closer match at the Champion of Champions.
That defeat should do him some good, and I like his draw. Higgins is in the same quarter but has a tricky second-round match coming, and Mark Selby, poor in Bolton, may have to overcome Hossein Vafaei if beating a dangerous Ross Muir. Ding can be fancied to ease past Zhang Anda and although Sam Craigie might give him a game in round two, over the longer format the three-time champion should do the business.
Ultimately we're looking at a section where Higgins and Selby take up a huge chunk of the market, and where there are form concerns over one of them plus Jack Lisowski. As hinted at in Bolton, Ding is not as far away from Higgins as the odds suggest and, in the tournament which has been kindest to him, looks worth backing to find one of those sudden upturns in form we've seen before.
That, or just pile it all on the favourite in quarter three.
