Players Championship Snooker 2024 Tips: Tough to back against Red Hot Ronnie

The 2024 Players Championship comes from Telford and is the 14th ranking event of the 2023-24 season.

Our man Dean Strand - aka @DSSnookertips is here to preview all the action, which you can follow live on ITV channels throughout the week...

The Players Championship is the 2nd of the three players series events, with the top 16 on this season's one-year list battling it out this week in Telford.

Ronnie O’Sullivan and Judd Trump unsurprisingly lead the betting, the two stand out players of the season by far sitting 1 and 2 on the one-year list and winning four trophies each this season.

Ronnie O’Sullivan - 9/4

It’s rare I back O’Sullivan or any favourite for an event but his form can not be ignored at the moment. He’s incredibly only been beaten by two players this season, winning 31 of his 34 matches overall.

His last defeat came over three months ago in the International Championship, since then he’s entered just three events and won all three, the UK Championship, Masters and World Grand Prix.

His UK Championship performances early on weren’t great but he breezed to victory in the Masters, winning all four matches by at least three clear frames and played some brilliant stuff in the Grand Prix, beating Trump 10-7 in the final.

He faces Zhou Yuelong in the first round, a player against whom he dominated the head to head with six wins from six before a quarter-final tie against Barry Hawkins or Mark Selby.

Selby has struggled in recent weeks and Ronnie has won his last eight matches against Hawkins so he has a very good chance of reaching the semi-finals at least again here and it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see him lift yet another trophy on Sunday.

Ali Carter - 20/1 (each-way)

In the top half of the draw Judd Trump would look the obvious pick, but these aren’t the kind of events he thrives in.

He often struggles in the early stages of tournaments and gets better as the tournament goes on, but in these shorter field ones where he’ll face tough matches every round he doesn’t have the luxury of being able to do that.

In this particular event, he’s been beaten in the 1st round three years in a row, so I'd look elsewhere for value in this section.

Ali Carter is my pick at these odds, played consistently well throughout the season, sitting 9th on the one-year list.

He plays Tom Ford in the opening round, a player who he leads 4-0 in the head to head before a potential quarter-final showdown against Trump.

He’s won two of his last three matches against Trump, beating him 6-5 in the Masters last month, as well as another 6-5 in the first round of this event last season.

Gary Wilson - 28/1 (each-way)

My final pick is Gary Wilson, odds of 28/1 look too good to ignore for a player who’s won two of the last four ranking events.

There may have been big names missing from the Welsh Open last week, but he still had impressive wins over Lisowski and Higgins as well as whitewashing McGill and Milkins so he’ll head into this week full of confidence.

Last week's win moved him up to 4th in the one-year list giving him an easier 1st round match and in the quarters he’s due to meet either Mark Williams who’s struggled for form lately or Mark Allen who struggled last week with a shoulder injury.

You can follow Dean's Snooker Betting Tips throughout the season with us here on Betfred Insights...