UK Championship Snooker Betting Tips
The first Triple Crown event in the 2024-25 season sees the players head to the York Barbican for the UK Championship, where Ronnie O'Sullivan will be hoping to defend his crown and claim a ninth win in the event.
The Rocket heads the seedings as a result of being defending champion but he has had an uncharacteristically poor start to the campaign, so form man and world number one Judd Trump arrives as tournament favourite.
However, the last five UK Championships have had five different winners and cases can be made for many given the nature of an early best-of-11 format.
The world’s top 16 are guaranteed their place in the main draw and they will be joined by the 16 successful qualifiers, with that process still ongoing.
Behind the World Championship and alongside the Masters, this is one of snooker’s most illustrious prizes and there is £250,000 up for grabs for the champion.
Tip 1 - Ding Junhui each-way @ SP
This is a tournament that notoriously brings out the best in Ding Junhui, who is a two-time winner of the event and has finished runner-up to Mark Allen and O’Sullivan in each of the last two seasons.
The Chinese cueman struggled to get over the line in any of those recent finals but he ended his five-year wait for a ranking title at the International Championship earlier this month and that should have restored his confidence.
Having also played second fiddle to Trump at the World Open in March, Ding has been finding his A-game more consistently in recent seasons and that makes the world number eight a threat to all at a venue he simply loves.
Ding is yet to find out which of the qualifiers will be his opening opponent but he may be in a decent quarter of the draw given top seed O’Sullivan’s recent struggles.
The Rocket has lost five of his last nine matches and he surrendered a 3-0 lead to lose 4-3 to Xiao Guodong in his Champion of Champions opener most recently.
Having opted to withdraw from three of the eight ranking events this season, the Rocket has plenty to prove and Ding, assuming he can come through an expected meeting with Shaun Murphy in the last 16, may be able to capitalise with another deep UK Championship run.
Tip 2 - Mark Williams each-way @ SP
Player of the season Trump and world champion Kyren Wilson are sure to have their supporters in the bottom half of the draw, but Mark Williams is peaking at the perfect time and could upstage the pair.
Williams is a two-time UK Champion and, while he has largely struggled in the competition in recent years, he was a quarter-finalist last season and appears to be arriving at the top of his game.
The Welshman won the Champion of Champions on Sunday, defeating Guodong 10-6 in the final following wins over Neil Robertson and Wilson, and if turning up in similar form he has to be of interest.
Williams would be expected to see off Zhang Anda in the last 16 on recent evidence and, while Trump could be lurking in the quarter-final, there is a sense that the Welsh Potting Machine may be performing at the peak of his powers and feels he can beat any rival he comes up against at present.