The UK Snooker Championships will be rolling around pretty soon as the best in the world descend once again on the Barbican in York for this popular ranking event which starts on November 28th. This is one of the bigger draws that can be found among the elite tournaments on the snooker calendar as there is a 128 man field starting in the first round and that is something which makes the event quite appealing. There’s always the promise of a lesser ranked player making waves in the draw.
But it is reigning Champion Mark Selby who is trading at the head of the market alongside Ronnie O’Sullivan (10/3). Selby (4/1) is one favourite for the title and as they will be in opposite halves of the draw there is always the potential of a rerun of last year’s final. After finding himself stretch out a great lead in the first session of the 2016 Final over O’Sullivan, Selby head to weather a fightback from the Rocket to get his hands on the title.
That was Selby’s second UK Championship title from three appearances in the Final during his career. As for O’Sullivan, he missed out on the chance to collect his sixth UK Championship title, but the Rocket has been showing great signs of form recently and in mid-November, hit the final of Shanghai, his fourth major tournament final of the season. After his win at the English Open and then a run to the final of the Champion of Champions event at the start of November, he appears value.
So Selby could not only be battling and in-form O’Sullivan, but history as well. The last time that the UK Championship title was successfully defended was back in 1996 when Stephen Hendry got his hands back on it. It’s a tough thing to defend this title apparently. Other main contenders in the field include Judd Trump and John Higgins and Trump is the one who may have to deal with O’Sullivan ahead of the final. Those two would be on a collision course for a semi final showdown in the bottom half of the draw.
2008 UK Championship winner Shaun Murphy just hit a bit of form in beating O’Sullivan at the Champion of Champions event and made a 2012 UK Championship final appearance and went deep last year too. John Higgins has won the thing three times before and went well at the event again last year too and will be a danger in the field, and he does avoid O’Sullivan potentially until the final. That’s important as the Rocket has knocked Higgins out of the last two tournaments which they have met at this season.
Top Tips
Ignoring Selby just because winning back to back titles is never easy, that throws the top half of the draw open to either Shaun Murphy (22/1) or John Higgins (10/1) to have a good run. The latter certainly has the pedigree and is a good each way bet. But of the main contenders, O’Sullivan at 10/3 looks as if he could get his hands on the title. It could be him or Trump from the bottom half of the draw and right now you’d swing things in favour of the Rocket.