Snooker World Championship 2024 Prediction and Betting Tips: Belgian Bullet can land back to back titles
The Crucible Theatre puts on its greatest show when the World Snooker Championship rolls into Sheffield for two weeks of cracking baize action.
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Ronnie O’Sullivan has the chance to make history and become an eight-time Crucible king, but there are a whole host of talented rivals standing in the Rocket’s way.
Judd Trump has won five ranking events this season and the Ace will be looking to add to his 2019 triumph in the Sheffield showpiece.
John Higgins, Mark Selby and Mark Williams arrive at the Crucible with a combined 11 World Championship titles and it’s hard to dismiss the chances of any of that brilliant trio.
Snooker World Championship Tips
Luca Brecel delivered on an abundance of talent when winning the World Championship at the Crucible Theatre last year and, at 16/1, the Belgian Bullet looks good value to successfully defend his crown.
The 29-year-old declined the invitation to many of the early season ranking events following last term’s Sheffield success and Brecel openly admitted that playing snooker wasn’t his top priority.
However, the Dilsen-Stokkem cueman did make the final of the high-profile World Masters and Shanghai Masters and those performances are a better indication of his Crucible credentials.
It’s worth remembering that the Belgian Bullet beat both O’Sullivan and Mark Selby on the way to landing the Sheffield showpiece last year and that is certainly no easy task.
The route to glory looks marginally easier this time around and there is little to fear from quarter rivals Robert Milkins, Ali Carter and Shaun Murphy.
First-round opponent David Gilbert is a mile off the form that saw the Tamworth man reach the 2019 World Championship semi-finals and Brecel’s path looks clear for an each-way bet.
Mark Allen will have eyes on the World Championship prize, but the Antrim ace could face a tough first-round test against Robbie Williams.
Allen was beaten by Zhou Yuelong in the first-round of the 2019 Sheffield showpiece, Jamie Clarke took the Pistol out in the opening contest of 2020’s World Championship and there have been 10 first or second-round exits in the Northern Irishman’s last 12 visits to the Crucible.
Williams is a tough competitor, who beat useful performers Anthony Hamilton and Chris Wakelin to qualify for Sheffield, and the Merseyside cueman looks a cracking 4/1 chance to upset Allen.
Trump has won five ranking events titles this season, but a best-of-19-frame two-session match is a completely different contest to the bulk of events on the snooker tour.
Clearly, the Ace is a supremely talented performer and a prolific tournament winner, but the Crucible has yielded only one success, back in 2019, and a first-round tie against Hossein Vafaei looks tricky.
The Prince of Persia is a ranking event winner who stars on the big stage and the Iranian cueman showed his class when reaching the semi-finals of the high-profile UK Championship earlier this season.
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