World Snooker Championship 2024 Saturday Round 1 Tips: Three bets for opening day

Snooker tipster Dean Strand has already given us his World Snooker Championship Betting Tips but he will also be giving us a daily tipping piece as well starting with the action for Saturday's round one matches. He has three bets for the opening day including a treble that's been boosted from 8/1 to 10/1!

2 pts - Jak Jones to beat Zhang Anda @ 6/4

I’ve already tipped Jak Jones to win this quarter and at odds of 6/4 I think he offers good value to get the win over Zhang Anda.

Zhang Anda has been a mainstay on the tour since 2013 and after 10 years of fairly average result, he suddenly sprung into life this season winning his first ranking event, the International Championship, and reaching an additional two finals.

As good as his early form in the season was, it wouldn’t be a huge surprise if that was simply a bit of a purple patch. In the 2nd half of the season, he’s struggled to maintain that consistency and his performances haven’t been of the same level.

There will also be a question mark of how he handles the Crucible, he has been here three times before, although not since 2016 and he’s never won a match here, with heavy defeats in his last two attempts.

He qualified for the Masters for the first time this season and seemed to struggle with the occasion a little there too, with a below average performance, in a 6-2 defeat to Shaun Murphy in the first round.

Jak Jones only qualified for the Crucible for the first time last year but rose to the occasion well, beating Ali Carter and Neil Robertson before losing a close Quarter Final against Mark Allen.

These two also met in the Welsh Open in February and Jones was a comfortable 4-1 winner.

2 pts - Hossein Vafaei Highest Break vs Judd Trump @ 9/5

Trump against Vafaei has the potential to be one of the best matches of the round, if Vafaei can play his best.

Between two players of this quality, the Highest Break scorer market can be a bit of a coin flip.

Vafaei has been averaging a century every 9.5 frames this season, so it would be a surprise if he didn’t make at least one in a best of 19.

These two have met eight times previously and Vafaei has won this market on four of these occasions.

Even when the two met at this stage two years ago and Trump won easily 10-4, Vafaei still managed to win this market with a break of 121.

1 pt BOOSTED Treble - Luca Brecel -2.5 Hcp, Ali Carter -2.5 Hcp, Tom Ford -1.5 Hcp @ 8.26/1 10/1

Luca Brecel v David Gilbert

As usual the defending Champion will get the tournament off to a start, as last year's surprise winner Luca Brecel begins his campaign against David Gilbert.

Although I spoke about my doubts about Brecel going far in my outright preview, I do think this first match could be a decent draw for him.

David Gilbert is undoubtedly a very good player on his day but a couple of mediocre seasons have seen him drop to 31st in the rankings, with a couple of runs to the NI Open quarter finals his only noteworthy results.

He had a great run here in 2019 but that was off the back of a very good season and his performances at the Crucible since then have been unimpressive with just one win out of five and heavy defeats in his last three matches, including a 10-4 defeat to Stuart Bingham last season.

Brecel hasn’t had a great season but he’s still had a better season than Gilbert and is the more consistent player of the two. If he’s on form here it could be a comfortable win for the Belgian.

Ali Carter v Stephen Maguire

Two players that know each other well here, being of a similar age and have met 13 times in their career, dating back to their first meeting back in 2000.

A couple of years ago Maguire could easily have been favourite for this one but whilst he’s slipped down the rankings to 28th after a couple of below par seasons. Carter, meanwhile, finds himself at his highest ranking position in years at ninth.

In the last two seasons Maguire has managed just two quarter final appearances, whilst in the same time period Carter has won the German Masters, made three finals and an additional four semi finals.

Maguire has also been beaten in the first round in seven of his last 10 visits to the Crucible and Carter leads the career head to head between the two 9-4.

Tom Ford v Ricky Walden

The final match to get underway on day one will be Tom Ford against Ricky Walden.

Tom Ford has never won a match at the Crucible before having played here four times previously but he’s also never been here as a seeded player before.

At a career high ranking of 14th, his form looks better than it’s ever been and he’ll definitely be coming into this one more confident than ever.

He qualified for the Tour Championship for the first time this season and was only a pot away from beating Mark Williams in the first round having made four centuries in the match. Williams went on to dominate the rest of the tournament winning his next three matches easily.

Ricky Walden on the other hand is down to 32nd in the rankings and struggled in both his qualifiers last week, with narrow wins over Ian Burns 10-7 and Mark Davis 10-9 to qualify.

The treble has bene generously boosted from 8/1 all the way out to 10/1, which you can access below.

You can follow all Dean's latest Snooker Betting Tips on our dedicated Betfred Insights page.