World Snooker Championship 2024 Thursday SF Tips: Bingham to put on another show

A surprising line up in the World Snooker Championship semi-finals today with the quarter-finals seeing Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump and John Higgins all eliminated from the Crucible spectacle, leaving the event wide open with three qualifiers and only one previous World Champion among them.

Our tipster Dean Strand is back once again with his predictions and betting tips for Thursday's semi-final action.

David Gilbert v Kyren Wilson

Gilbert has been looking better and more confident the longer this tournaments gone on. He could easily have been eliminated at 9-6 to Brecel in the first round but took advantage of Brecel's mistakes to win the last four frames and then had a dominant win over Robert Milkins in the last 16 13-4.

In the quarters he reached into a 7-1 lead against Stephen Maguire and then held of the comeback to win 13-8, making three centuries along the way.

Wilson wasn’t really tested until meeting Higgins in the quarter-final stage with comfortable wins over Dominic Dale and Joe O’Connor in his first two matches.

These two have met five times before and Wilson does lead the head to head 3-2 but Gilbert has won their two meetings in the biggest events, beating Wilson 6-5 in the Masters as well as a comfortable 13-8 in their only previous meeting at the Crucible, a quarter-final here five years ago.

The way both players are playing there isn’t a lot in this one for me and the value lies with the outsider.

Stuart Bingham v Jak Jones

Bingham is the only one of the four players to have won this event before and I do think he can use that experience here.

Jak Jones has had great results at the Crucible last year and this year but he hasn’t played at the one table set up before, this is by far the biggest match of his career and he has already shown a few nerves in his previous matches this week.

He’s beaten some good players to reach this stage including Trump but the quality has been low in all three matches with his opponents letting him off the hook a little.

This is Bingham's third semi-final here with a win over Trump when he went on to lift the trophy in 2015 and a narrow defeat to Mark Selby three years ago 17-15.

Beaten three very good players this week, the in form Gary Wilson, Jack Lisowski and tournament favourite O’Sullivan in the quarter-finals.

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