Dave Hendon: 'It's all about prestige!' - Who will win The Masters in crowded field? Ronnie O'Sullivan? Judd Trump?

Published 05/01/2024 at 12:40 GMT

The Masters gets underway this weekend as snooker in 2024 gets started with a real bang. Ahead of the second Triple Crown event of the year Dave Hendon gives his thoughts on a potential winner in his latest column for Eurosport. This year's tournament is particularly difficult to predict with so many top players in the draw and so many wildcards in terms of form.

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The World Championship is the greatest snooker show on earth but the Masters, with its one-table set up, huge London crowds and swanky corporate hospitality scores high on glitz and glamour.

First staged in 1975, it is firmly established as one of the premier jewels in the snooker crown. Solely for the elite top 16 in the world, it carries a first prize of £250,000. With no ranking points available, it’s all about prestige.

This is an event Stephen Hendry won on each of his first five attempts. It’s where the late, much missed, Paul Hunter dazzled and delighted with a hat-trick of 10-9 victories. It’s the tournament where Mark Williams held it together to beat Hendry on a re-spot finish in 1998 and where John Higgins made one of the all-time great clearances to snatch victory from Ronnie O’Sullivan on the last ball in 2006.

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So the Masters has a rich history and has therefore banked a huge store of memories for snooker fans of all ages, with more to be added this year.

Luca Brecel kicks the tournament off against Jack Lisowski, a match unlikely to be safety dominated as these two eye-catching talents face off in what seems sure to be a potting fest.

The last reigning world champion to win the Masters was O’Sullivan in 2014. Brecel has had a patchy season since his Crucible triumph last May. There’s no obvious reason to tip him for success at Ally Pally but the same was true before he pitched up in Sheffield.

O’Sullivan has a rematch with Ding Junhui, who he beat 10-7 to become the oldest UK champion last month 30 years after becoming the youngest. He can repeat the same feat at the Masters, having won it first as a 19 year-old in 1995.

O’Sullivan is already the record holder with seven title victories to his name and has beaten Ding five times at the Masters, including a 10-3 drubbing in the 2007 final.

He is drawn in the opposite half to defending champion, Judd Trump, who salvaged a disappointing 2022/23 campaign with a 10-8 victory over Williams in last year’s final.

Trump heads back to the capital with his game very much restored to former glories. He has appeared in five finals already this season, winning three ranking titles in a row during a golden four-week spell.

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Trump starts out against Kyren Wilson, always a committed, dogged competitor but without much in the way of the results to count on this season. Wilson, runner-up at the Masters in 2018, has appeared in just one ranking event quarter-final so far this term.

It was Mark Allen who beat Wilson in the final six years ago but he has not won a match in the Masters since and was whitewashed 6-0 by Barry Hawkins last year.

Allen has won the Champion of Champions and Shootout titles this season but faces a stern test in the face of Higgins, for whom the Masters tends to be a case of feast or famine.

Higgins has won the title twice and appeared in three other finals. Most would regard this as a stellar record but the Scot has also lost 14 times in the first round.

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This year, Higgins sets a record for 30 successive Masters appearances. He has won plenty of matches this season, reaching four semi-finals, but has fallen short at the business end of tournaments just as the old form seems to have returned.

Zhang Anda will become the 95th player to compete in the Masters in its 50 stagings when he faces Shaun Murphy.

Zhang was hovering around the 60 mark in the world rankings when the season began with no reason to think he would be rubbing shoulders with the best in the business at Alexandra Palace. But his run to the English Open final proved a springboard for a remarkable few weeks in which he won the International Championship and got up to 13th in the standings.

While he has thrived, little has been seen of Neil Robertson, whose form has fallen off a cliff this season. Robertson felt he needed a break and went home to Australia for Christmas, a boost to his mental health which could see him come back stronger in the second half of the campaign.

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Of all the players in the field, he is perhaps the most suited to the packed crowds and chance to excel on the big stage, which is exactly what he did when he won his second Masters title two years ago. Such is Robertson’s natural confidence and straight as an arrow cue action that he revels in the London atmosphere. It could well inspire him to find his game again.

Mark Selby is a three times Masters winner but has not been past the quarter-finals since 2014, a surprising run of disappointing defeats for another big occasion player.

He will be a heavy favourite to get through the first round against Robert Milkins, who has failed to win a match in two previous appearances, although the Milkman has not had much luck with draws, having already lost to O’Sullivan and Robertson.

You don’t really get big outsiders in the Masters but Ali Carter, who reached the final on his last Ally Pally appearance in 2020, could be worth supporting. A first round encounter with Williams represents a tough challenge but the steely Carter doesn’t fear anyone.

Who wins? Like an Agatha Christie mystery, you could make a case for just about anyone. The fun, always, is in the final reveal.

Whoever does prevail will have had to deal with the intense pressure of producing their best against snooker’s finest players, while also handling the often raucous atmosphere.

In 50 years there have been 25 different winners. Every one of them would rate a Masters victory as a career highlight.

Snooker fans the world over cannot wait for the 2024 edition. There is no better event to launch the second half of the season.

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