The second leg of the Cazoo Cup starts on Monday, with the top 16 from snooker’s one-year ranking list travelling to Wolverhampton to contest the Players Championship.
Two fairly surprising names top the seeding list for the tournament, with Zhao Xintong and Luca Brecel arriving as the players to beat after their breakthrough performances in recent months.
New Names Top the Seeding List
China’s Zhao took the UK Championship over Belgian Brecel in December, before winning his second ranking title at the German Masters last month.
In the process the 24-year-old became the third player ever to win a two-session ranking final without dropping a frame, whitewashing fellow countryman Yan Bingtao 9-0.
Brecel bounced back from his loss to Zhao by winning the Scottish Open the week after, beating John Higgins 9-5 in the final.
Zhao is 15/2 to win this competition and Brecel is 16/1.
Tough Draw for Big Guns
Due to some of the younger stars rising up the rankings and the luck of the draw, some of the sport’s biggest names have landed in the same quarter in Wolverhampton.
Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump, the world’s number two and three, face off in the first round with the winners facing either world number four Neil Robertson or five Kyren Wilson in the quarter-finals.
Higgins, Brecel and recent first-time ranking title winner Hossein Vafaei are also in a stacked bottom half of the draw.
Nevertheless Trump is favourite to win this year’s competition at 4/1, with Higgins second in the betting at 11/2.
Gentle Top Half May be Place to Look
With only three of the world’s top ten and none of the world’s top five, the top half of the draw looks set to be a much easier side to navigate than the loaded bottom eight.
Number one seed and recent German Masters winner Zhao faces Barry Hawkins in the opening round, while fourth seed Mark Williams will take on Gary Wilson.
Mark Allen, Ricky Walden, David Gilbert and Yan round up the top section.
Yan can Atone for Whitewash in Berlin
Yan will have been disappointed with his 9-0 defeat in the final of the German Masters, but he could pick up almost immediate compensation with a potential quarter-final clash with the man who overcame him in Berlin.
Bingtao beat Gilbert, Mark Selby, Ryan Day and Mark Allen en route to the final there and is clearly in good nick.
In the easier top half, the 21-year-old looks a decent bet at 8/1 and may be able to secure his second ranking title after taking 2019’s Riga Masters.
*All odds correct at time of writing