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As the 2023 World Snooker Championship takes centre stage, the favourites to take the championship title are being hotly debated. With names like Ronnie O’Sullivan, Neil Robertson, Mark Selby and Judd Trump all in contention to be crowned the champion, what are the World Snooker Championship odds telling us about this year’s event?
Tournament Overview
Contents
Before getting into the 2023 World Snooker Championship outright odds, let’s first take a look at the details of the tournament. The famous Crucible Theatre in Sheffield once again plays host to the tournament, which is the top honour in the sport, the chance to be crowned World Champion.
The BBC is the main stop for the viewing options for this year’s tournament, as they have live coverage across their platforms for fans and punters to follow along with. The First round of action at the 2023 World Snooker Championship starts on April 15th.
This year’s Final, the best of 35 frames between the last two players standing, will be played across two days, April 30th and May 1st. The latter is the night when the world champion will be crowned.
Last year’s winner was Ronnie O’Sullivan who claimed his 7th World Championship title, moving him level with Stephen Hendry’s haul. So ‘The Rocket’ now has the chance to pull ahead and become the most successful player in the modern era. O’Sullivan is the top seed for the 32-player draw.
The main prize is £500,000 and that is the biggest sum of money that can be won at a single event in the snooker calendar. The World Championship is the final ranking tournament for the 2022/23 season.
The Favourite
The player with the shortest quote in World Snooker Championship chances is Ronnie O’Sullivan who is the current 4/1 favourite. The first of his titles happened just after the turn of the century, beating John Higgins in the 2001 Final. O’Sullivan would go on to win it again in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2013, 2020 and 2022.
It is nothing new to see O’Sullivan as the head of the World Snooker Championship odds. But ‘The Rocket’ has had a quiet 2022/23 snooker season, failing to win a ranking event in 2023 with his best results being quarter-final exits at the UK Championship and Welsh Open.
The Chasing Pack
If the bookmakers have O’Sullivan pegged as the tournament’s outright favourite, who is in the main chasing pack? That is a clutch of former champions in Mark Selby, Judd Trump and Neil Robertson among the World Snooker Championship Favourites.
As far as the 2023 World Snooker Championship draw goes, Trump is the one that is in the same half as O’Sullivan. So there could be a big clash between those two down the line at the semi-final stage.
Trump, the 2019 Championship lost 18-13 to O’Sullivan in last year’s Final. Second seed Mark Selby is at the bottom of the draw, well away from O’Sullivan but the four-time World Champion is a threat at a pre-tournament quote of 15/2.
The other big seed in Selby’s half of the draw is 2010 World Champion Neil Robertson, who hasn’t been back to the Final since. He could be on a collision course with Selby in the semi-finals and the Australian goes as a pre-tournament quote of 15/2.
The only other player in the field going into the tournament in single fixtures in the 2023 World Snooker Championship betting odds is 2005 World Champion Shaun Murphy at 8/1.
Pre-Tournament World Snooker Championship Odds
- Ronnie O’Sullivan 4/1
- Mark Selby 5/1
- Judd Trump 13/2
- Neil Robertson 15/2
- Shaun Murphy 8/1
- Kyren Wilson 12/1
- Mark Allen 12/1
- John Higgins 16/1
- Mark Williams 16/1
- Ding Junhui 20/1
- 33/1 bar
All odds on this page from Ladbrokes were correct at the time of writing.
The Outsiders
Unpredictable wins do happen at the World Championship and in the last decade there have been a couple of notable ones. Stuart Bingham’s 2015 success against Shaun Murphy came out of nowhere.
In 2018 veteran Mark Williams rolled back the years to win the tournament for the third time in his career. That 2018 World Championship title for the Welshman came fifteen years after his previous one.
Among the outsiders in World Snooker Championship Odds, there are some big names, like former champions Ding Junhui, John Higgins and Williams the latter two both at 16/1. Mark Allen has had a career-best season and could be on the radar too in World Snooker Championship chances.
As for the big rank outsider in the snooker outright odds? That’s Elliot Slessor and David Grace who are 300/1 shots. There are five debutants in the draw, Fan Zhengyi, Jak Jones, Pang Junxu, Si Jiahui, and Wu Yize.
Watch The Draw
Whether picking one of the World Snooker Championship favourites or an underdog, take a moment to take in the draw.
Look for any players that potentially have an easier route to the Final than others and that could influence snooker predictions.
Ronnie O’Sullivan (1) v Pang Junxu
Ding Junhui (16) v Hossein Vafaei
Luca Brecel (9) v Ricky Walden
Mark Williams (8) v Jimmy Robertson
Judd Trump (5) v Anthony McGill
Jack Lisowski (12) v Noppon Saengkham
Robert Milkins (13) v Joe Perry
Shaun Murphy (4) v Si Jiahui
Mark Allen (3) v Fan Zhengyi
Stuart Bingham (14) v David Gilbert
Ali Carter (11) v Jak Jones
Neil Robertson (6) v Wu Yize
Kyren Wilson (7) v Ryan Day
John Higgins (10) v David Grace
Gary Wilson (15) v Elliot Slessor
Mark Selby (2) v Matthew Selt
How big is O’Sullivan’s advantage as top speed as he could get to the semis without facing another top-six seed? Is the bottom half of the draw stronger?
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