This season has been dominated by two men – it’s been the Judd Trump and Kyren Wilson show!
From 17 events, Trump and Wilson have won 3 titles each and have both lost in two finals as well.
It’s just Wilson of the duo in attendance in Llandudno this week and no doubt he’ll be gunning for a fourth ranker as he isn’t on the roster of previous winners of the Welsh which dates back to 1980. It’s actually one of the only trophies Trump is yet to lift though he made the 2017 and 2022 final. Wilson lost in the 2020 final to Shaun Murphy. Also, it must be the first time in his career Wilson is favourite (in some places) for any title. Quite right but added pressure?
Talking of pressure, it’s on Neil Robertson in North Wales who leads the BetVictor Home Nations series rankings with one event to go. He has a draw he will probably welcome though nothing is concrete in this unforgiving format. The winner will walk away with a tidy £150,000 bonus thanks to the generous sponsors.
The Welsh Open has had some surprise winners in the last few years; Jordan Brown in 2021, Joe Perry in 2022, Rob Milkins in 2023 and Gary Wilson in 2024. The latter probably the least surprising given he had lifted the 2022 and 2023 Scottish Open’s but you get my drift. It’s one event where the obvious maybe isn’t so obvious.
Mark Selby
So of course, I’m going to head to an obvious first selection, a winner of two titles this season, the four-time World champion, Mark Selby. I wonder if the Jester might have the last laugh this week.
In September, in an identical format to this, he captured the British Open in Cheltenham. You will be very surprised to know, it was his first ranking title in 18 months since the WST Classic.
Selby is just a Northern Ireland Open title away from being a full set Home Nations winner though he’s yet to win the Welsh Open since the series started in 2016. In fact, his Welsh Open victory came in 2008, when the sport was in the doldrums with only seven ranking events to play for in a season compared to 18 now.
It hasn’t really been a happy hunting event for Selby since 08’, where he hasn’t bypassed the quarter-final stage since making the final in 2012 but we have in our corner a master best-of-seven player with a 73% win rate this season and a remarkable 78% win rate in his career.
Selby has put a big marker down for this coming week in Llandudno with victory last week at the Championship league for the second year in succession thumping Kyren 3-0 in the final including a 147 With 51 centuries to his name already this season, we know Selby is scoring extremely well, it’s about putting it all together for a whole event which has been a slight achilles heel this term. I think he has a decent draw, starting with rookie Haydon Pinhey and then potentially onto his conqueror in Berlin, Elliot Slessor.
All roads lead to Selby wanting to regain his World crown in May, but a win here and maintaining his form will do him no harm.
Hossein Vafaei
Given the likes of Lei Peifan, Fan Zhengyi, Zhang Anda and Xiao Guodong have all broken their ranking event (no Shoot-Out!) duck in the last few years, it’s incredible a player of Hossein Vafaei’s class hasn’t yet won a flat 128 ‘proper’ ranking event.
This event has been quite kind to him over the years so why not improve that further this week. Vafaei made the semi-final in 2019 and 2022 as well as last 16 exits in 2017 and 2021. He clearly likes the Welsh air in his Iranian body.
If there is a concern, he’s not exactly Mr Consistent this season to make him a stand out contender here, with this best run coming out in Xi’an at the Grand Prix where he lost in the last 16 to old foe, Ronnie O’Sullivan. He would have fancied his chances at the German Masters but had to withdraw with visa issues.
So it’s been a stop and start season however he’s relatively fresh and performed admirably at the Championship league last week, losing out to Selby in the semi-final.
I wonder if that might give him a much needed spark to life and though he starts off with the dangerous Fan Zhengyi, we know he likes these surroundings in Wales.
If he gets on a roll, with a cue action to die for, he’s an almighty hard player to beat.
