2024 World Snooker Championship Winner Predictions & Tips

Who will the World Snooker Champion be?

With the tense, final day of qualifying and the first-round draw now complete we can look forward to an exciting 17 days of snooker as we reach the climax of the 2024 season.

As usual the draw has given us some exciting first round clashes. Highlights include Judd Trump v Hossein Vafaei,  Barry Hawkins v Ryan Day and for me, the pick of the bunch a mouthwatering clash between Ding Junhui and Jack Lisowski.

The Bottom Half

My immediate reaction to the draw from an outright betting point of view is that the bottom half is packed with quality and that we should, therefore, look to the top half for someone who will avoid the big names early on but who is still capable of giving a good account of himself in a best of 35 frames Final.

The bottom half includes both Judd Trump and Ronnie O’Sullivan.

This season O’Sullivan has lost just 8 matches and has already won 5 titles. He is, as always, the man to beat but with O’Sullivan’s odds just 9/4* I think we need to be looking elsewhere.

Trump is most likely to meet O’Sullivan in the Semi Final. Trump has also had a very good season picking up 5 titles and losing just 12 matches. However, he has a tough opener against the very capable Hossein Vafaei and a possible Quarter Final against recent Tour Championship winner Mark Williams before he meets O’Sullivan, so (at just 4/1*) I think we can look elsewhere for our winner.

The Top Half

If we look to the top of the draw, we have the reigning champion Luca Brecel who would need to overcome the dreaded ‘Crucible Curse’ (first time winners never retain their trophy) as well as a disappointing season if he were to oblige at just 18/1* (he was 66/1 last year) Higgins, Carter, Wilson and Murphy have all had poor seasons and can be discounted. Which, for me, leaves Mark Allen and Mark Selby as the two realistic finalists in this top half.

Mark Allen is tempting at 11/1*. He has had a solid season (winning 3 titles) and has a decent enough record against both Trump and O’Sullivan but for a player of his undoubted quality his record at the Crucible is poor.

Just 2 Semi-Finals in 21 Crucible appearances suggests that he doesn’t enjoy playing in Sheffield and is enough to put me off him.

Mark Selby To Win The World Snooker Championship

This leaves us with Mark Selby.

Selby has, admittedly, not been at his very best this season, winning just one title and has a disappointing 66% overall win record . But (and it’s a big BUT) Selby comes alive at the World Championship.

In the last 10 years he has won the title 4 times, he lost in the final (to an inspired Luca Brecel last year) and was a losing semi-finalist to O’Sullivan (17-16) in 2020.

Neither O’Sullivan nor Trump have a Crucible record that comes close to that. He has a decent draw and at 8/1* looks a very fair price to make it 5 titles in 11 years.

My selection: Mark Selby @ 8/1* (E/W ½ 1,2)

*All odds are correct at time of writing and are subject to change.

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