Luca Brecel V Ryan Day - 23/04/25 14.30 & 24/04/25 13.00
It's no secret that Luca Brecel struggled on the table throughout the season after claiming the sports ultimate prize in 2023. That pressure has now been released which may free the Belgian up to possibly have a good crack at going deep in this year's Championship.
He has since began to regain his form and made an impressive run to the Welsh Open semi-final in February only to be defeated by eventual winner Mark Selby. The form he showed during the week in Llandudno will no doubt give him confidence ahead of his first round match with world number 36 Ryan Day.
The Welshman came through qualifying with solid wins over Sunny Akani & Sanderson Lam to claim a place at the Crucible for the 16th time.
Having won the British Open in 2022, he has failed to reach a ranking event semi-final since but will be eyeing up a possible scalp over the former World Champion that can be vulnerable at times.
The pair have had very few competitive meetings recently making the outcome of the tie hard to predict. But I feel the form Brecel has shown recently will be good enough to come through this tricky tie.
Prediction: 10-7 Brecel
Mark Selby V Ben Woollaston - 23/04/25 19.00 & 24/04/25 19.00
World number 4 Mark Selby has had to wait until the 5th day of this year's Championship to make his first appearance and it will be against fellow Leicester man Ben Woollaston.
The 4-time World Champion comes into the event in good form having made the Tour Championship final just over two weeks ago. He also picked up three titles this season (British Open, Welsh Open, Championship League) along with a string of deep runs in tournaments.
He seems to be approaching the form that saw him reach world number 1 on numerous occasions throughout the last 15 years.
It's seems like Ben Woollaston has an uphill task on his hands to overturn Selby but he came through impressively against Ross Muir & Mark Davis in qualifying to reach the World Championship for the 2nd time in his career.
It was a big achievement to qualify considering he is well down at 44th in the World rankings, it's been a pretty uneventful season for the 37-year-old with victories proving hard to come by.
He will know that he faces a tough task to progress but will take confidence from defeating Selby in the past (2018 English Open).
Knowing the level Selby's been playing at recently, I can only see one result here.
Prediction: Selby 10-3
No comments:
Post a Comment