THE MASTERS SNOOKER: The Masters begins this weekend with Ronnie O’Sullivan’s brilliance ringing in everyone’s ears. Such was the nature of his performance at the UK Championship just four weeks ago, it would be understandable to think there’s only one player in town when it comes to one of snooker’s Triple Crown tournaments.
The Snooker landscape is somewhat unstable at the moment. Mark Selby, world number one by some distance in rankings points, has won ‘only’ the one ranking event in the last 12 months, and is considered to be slightly off the boil. Add to this the perception that a focused Ronnie O’Sullivan is a superior player and competitor, and throw in a highly competitive second tier of players looking for their own success – parsing the odds can be a challenging experience.
Reliable Rocket?
As ever, O’Sullivan is near the sharp and short end of the betting heading into The Masters. Understandable considering he’s the most successful player in the tournament’s 43 year history with seven titles. He’s fresh off the back of winning the UK Championship where he looked as good as ever, and a win this month would mean four Masters Titles in five years.
Why would anyone oppose ‘The Rocket’ at all? His temperamental nature is well documented. While there’s tournaments that he seems to overcome himself and play to his own standard, it’s an unpleasant risk when there’s a real investment involved.
O’Sullivan has got the better of what is always a tricky draw at Alexandra Palace. The Englishman must overcome Marco Fu, then either Mark Allen or Luca Brecel. After that, the Semi Final stage is likely to present O’Sullivan with either John Higgins (8.0) or Ding Junhui (15.0) – both class acts.
At around 3.45 on the Betdaq exchange Ronnie is typically short, and he’s unlikely to shorten much more even if he overcomes Marco Fu in the first round. But as we mentioned at the top, he’s very hard to oppose.
Murphy and the Other Side
The beauty of the Masters is the quality. The world’s top 16 players enter, 4 rounds later you have a winner that can claim to have beaten the best of the best. For Shaun Murphy to reclaim a crown he last won in 2015, he’ll certainly have to beat the best.
First up for Murphy is the hyper-talented Ali Carter, if he emerges from his first round he can look forward to likely meetings with Judd Trump in the quarters, and Mark Selby or Mark Williams in the semis.
This is the tough side of the draw no question. That being said, in Murphy there’s no better man. He went the distance with an ignited Ronnie O’Sullivan at the UK just a month ago, he’s won titles in the last 12 months, and he has a tasty price to compliment all of this.
You can back Murphy at around 11.0 on our exchange at the moment, he’s a good shout to outright win the competition but there’ll be an opportunity to lay-out if he makes the Semi Finals.
Best Bet
Considering the risk and lack of layout opportunity, backing Ronnie O’Sullivan in the outright is our second bet here.
For greater flexibility, and the carrot of a bigger dividend on your investment, Murphy at 11’s is good value considering his form and his course form at The Masters. If you really want to take on Ronnie, Ding junhui, for all his pedigree is at 15’s. This short format tournament, remember, only 4 rounds to win, could suit another former Masters Champion.
Did you know that as well as checking the realtime prices on BETDAQ below – you can also log into your account and place your bets directly into BETDAQ from BETDAQ TIPS.
