International Championship Snooker 2024 Predictions: Three outright tips for China

The relentless snooker calendar continues as we travel to China for the eighth ranking event of the season -  the International Championship.

As always, we have snooker expert Dean Strand (@DSSnookerTips) on-hand with some International Championship snooker 2024 predictions.

History, Location and Format

The International Championship is a ranking tournament that was initially introduced in 2012 and is now in his tenth year, having been cancelled for three straight years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The tournament was originally known as the first 'overseas major' as the tournament had the same amount of ranking points as the UK Championship and whilst it's prize money has now been passed by other tournaments, it is still a prestigious trophy to win.

This year's event is held at the South New City National Fitness Center in Nanjing, China for the first time in its history and runs from Sunday 3rd to Sunday 10th November. The event will be broadcast on Eurosport and discovery+ in the UK.

The field consists of 64 players once qualification is complete and the top 32 players will be automatically seeded for the last 64.

There have been two multiple champions, with Judd Trump and Mark Selby both picking up the title twice.

The defending champion is Chinese player Zhang Anda who defeated Tom Ford 10-6 in the 2023 final.

Prize Money

1pt Kyren Wilson outright @ 8/1

My first outright pick for this event is the in-form World Champion Kyren Wilson.

Wilson seems to have upped his game since winning the World Championship this year, and he’s already followed it up with two ranking event wins.

He’s not done it the easy way either, beating world number one Judd Trump in both of his finals - last week dominating Trump to win 9-3 in the final after racing to a 7-0 lead.

His performances in China have been good this season too. Aside from the Shanghai Masters, his first ranking event win came in the Xi’an Grand Prix beating Ronnie O’Sullivan in the final and in the Wuhan Open he was beaten in a decider by the eventual winner Guodong.

0.5pts e/w Pang Junxu outright @ 40/1

I'll also have an each-way go on a player who landed us a 10/1 winner in the Northern Ireland Open last week, Pang Junxu.

Up until last then, every one of Pang's ranking event defeats this season was in a deciding frame, and he produced another string of good performances in Belfast with wins over Sijun, Brecel and Robertson to reach the semi-finals, where he was beaten narrowly by eventual winner Kyren Wilson.

Against Robertson he showed great composure with a break of 129 in the decider and in current form he looks like he could become a regular in the latter stages of events.

0.5pts e/w Thepchaiva Un-Nooh outright @ 50/1

Zhang Anda is the top seed this week as the defending champion, but he’s yet to rediscover the form that he managed in the early stages of last season and this quarter now looks wide open.

Murphy and Higgins lead the betting, but neither player has been in particularly good form for a while now. Higgins recently dropped out of the top 16 briefly and Murphy has a lot of ranking points to defend this season after a poor year.

My pick for this quarter is Thepchaiya Un-Nooh. He hasn’t done anything noteworthy for a couple of years, but he’s never been a consistent player and when he does hit form it tends to be out of nowhere.

He’s always enjoyed playing in China too, with most of his ranking event success coming here. A former semi-finalist in this event and also twice reached the latter stage of the World Open. Also won the non ranking Haining Open in 2015.

At this event last year he looked good in all three matches, beating Matthew Selt and Mark Allen before losing out in a decider to Barry Hawkins.

With an easier run this year, 50/1 looks worth an each-way punt.

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