Snooker’s 2025 Players Championship – Who Will Win?
This week’s £500,000 Players Championship will be packed with the top 16 players In the world.
Topping the 2024/25 season prizemoney table, Judd Trump is the top seed in this week’s Players Championship. © Getty Images
Key Facts:
- The top 16 players on the one-year ranking list will contest Snooker’s £500,000 Players Championship.
- The last eight ranking tournaments have produced eight individual winners.
- Telford competition should prove to be an excellent World Championship form pointer.
- Mark Allen is aiming to win this tournament for a second successive year.
Telford’s International Centre may be an unlikely place for some of the world’s best sportsmen to congregate, but on March 17, the top 16 players on Snooker’s one-year ranking list will arrive at the venue to fight over the destiny of the £500,000 Sportsbet.io Players Championship.
Despite a small field and a best-of-11 format in the first three rounds, confidently predicting just one of the finalists is no easy task.
The last eight ranking tournaments of the 2024/25 season have produced eight individual winners. Only Barry Hawkins reached more than one decider during this same four-month period. He was narrowly beaten in both.
Last year, Mark Allen took this title when ranked/seeded 12. The Northern Irishman will return to defend his title in 2025 as the 15th player on the one-year rankings. Only Ronnie O’Sullivan in 2018/19 has ever retained this title.
Players Guide a Guide to the Worlds
This tournament, exclusively featuring players enjoying a fruitful year, should prove an excellent form guide to the destination of the sport’s biggest prize. With an eye fixed on the Holy Grail – the World Championship – only a month away, here we will look at the Players Championship’s opening round matches and consider who will most likely land the title.
Judd Trump (£993,200) vs Lei Peifan (£161,000)
Trump, the biggest money earner of the season, will face 21-year-old Lei Peifan – who won £100,000 of his £161,000 2024/25 haul when landing December’s Scottish Open – in a match that should be very one-sided.
Since his shock victory in Edinburgh, Peifan has lost four of his six subsequent matches with embarrassing defeats at the hands of 102-ranked Alan Taylor and amateur player Dylan Emery.
Trump has not been at his brilliant best during the past three months. But even on a bad day, the thought of him losing to his young Chinese rival is inconceivable.
Kyren Wilson (£541,800) vs Mark Allen (£163,400)
Unlike Luca Brecel a year beforehand, Kyren Wilson’s World Championship crown has not weighed him down. On the contrary, the 33-year-old has enjoyed his best-ever season – winning the Xi’an Grand Prix, Northern Ireland Open and German Masters.
The past month has given his fans cause for concern, though. Second-round exits in the Welsh Open, World Open, and World Grand Prix were disappointing, albeit two of those losses were to John Higgins, who has always been one of his ‘bogey players’.
Mark Allen has not made the final of a ranking tournament during the current season, but three semi-finals and a quarter-final appearance have boosted his winnings – which work as ranking points in Snooker.
The Northern Irishman won three matches – beating Luca Brecel, Ronnie O’Sullivan and Ding Junhui – to win the Riyadh Season Snooker Championship, collecting £250,000 in December. However, this event did not carry ranking status.
This is a difficult match to call. Further afield, online betting sites quote Luca Kyren Wilson on 9/1 for a World Championship repeat. Mark Allen has progressed beyond the competition’s second round only twice in 13 years and is priced on 14/1 odds.
Neil Robertson (£407,050) vs Stuart Bingham (£169,400)
Last weekend, Neil Robertson triumphed – at the Kai Tak Arena in Hong Kong – with a thumping 10-0 defeat of Stuart Bingham in the £700,000 World Grand Prix. Overall, the pair have now met 23 times, with Bingham holding sway on 12 victories.
Both are former World Champions – Robertson in 2010, Bingham in 2015 – and on their day, they are a handful for any rival. However, Bingham has not won a ranking tournament in over six years, and if it were not for his run to the Hong Kong final, he would not be here.
That performance saw the 48-year-old jump 16 places on the one-year prizemoney list. Robertson’s ticket to the Players Championship was his victory in September’s English Open and three additional quarter-final appearances in ranking events.
Notwithstanding the recent whitewash, Robertson has a better overall profile and should confirm the Hong Kong form. A few online gambling sites quote the Australian on 14/1 odds for the World Championship. Another good performance this week will likely see those odds more than halved.
John Higgins (£333,750) vs Chris Wakelin (£194,400)
Wiley old fox John Higgins is here courtesy of a final table appearance in September’s British Open and victory in the World Open a fortnight ago. £75,000 of Wakelin’s haul came from his runner-up spot in November’s International Championship. It topped up the money garnered from a trip to the semi-finals of the English Open.
Head-to-head, Higgins – a famous Class of 92 member – has won four times from six encounters. However, Wakelin has won their last two matches, most recently in the quarter-finals of the International Championship. The bookmakers will make Higgins a strong favourite again, but Wakelin will be of interest in the handicap markets with a head start.
Xiao Guodong (£306,500) vs Wu Yize (£205,600)
The Wuhan Open was a success for Xiao Guodong, who added £140,000 to his prizemoney haul and ensured he had a place in this field. He was also a finalist in the non-ranking Champion of Champions, where Mark Selby beat him 10-6.
21-year-old Wu Yize has yet to win a ranking tournament, but his time is surely not too far away based on final appearances in this season’s English and Scottish Opens. Interestingly, this pair has only met once in competition. Yize got the verdict in this season’s Edinburgh event.
Xiao Guodong’s Wuhan Open victory has been complimented with three semi-final and two quarter-final appearances in 2024/25 ranking events. That means he has a much stronger overall profile in this confrontation and is an interesting World Championship contender on his 25/1 odds.
Mark Selby (£285,000) vs Si Jiahui (£219,200)
British Open, Welsh Open, additional success in the non-ranking Championship League, and a recent 147 confirm Mark Selby is back on song. The four-time World Champion is in the top three of the betting for the 2025 event.
Clearly, Si Jiahui – primarily here courtesy of prizemoney earned for finishing runner-up in the Wuhan Open and a whopping £100,000 collected for reaching the semi-final of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters – will have his work cut out.
This duo have met four times before. Mark Selby won on every occasion, winning 15 of their 24 competitive frames. Jiahui is a rough diamond and, still only 22, he has enormous potential. However, it isn’t easy to see past 24-time ranking winner Mark Selby.
Mark Williams (£265,600) vs Ding Junhui (£235,000)
Mark Williams banked £200,000 for making the final of the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters (won by Judd Trump) last August. A host of early-round defeats, withdrawals and losses in the qualifying stages of other ranking events has added another £65,000 to his bank balance and given him a spot in this event.
The Welshman’s lack of consistency is underlined by his November success in the elite-field Champion of Champions. En route to victory, he beat World Champions Luca Brecel, Kyren Wilson and Neil Robertson before fencing off Xiao Guodong in the final.
Lifetime, Ding Junhui has beaten Mark Williams by a ratio of 15-8. They have met twice since December 2023; Ding won both matches by a 6-5 scoreline. His season has also featured more troughs than peaks, but he unexpectedly won £175,000 when taking November’s International Championship.
Barry Hawkins (£261,550) vs Shaun Murphy (£257,900)
Hawkins has beaten Murphy five times in their last eight meetings. However, overall, the score is 14-9 in favour of Shaun Murphy. Neither player has won a ranking event this campaign, but Murphy took the non-ranking Masters, and Hawkins was a finalist in the UK Championship and German Masters.
Arguably, in terms of recent form, this pair are playing as well as anyone currently on the tour. Once again, Hawkins could be the shout in the handicap betting markets, as Murphy will be the match day favourite.
2025 Players Championship Need to Know Details
Running from March 17-23 at Telford International Centre, the Sportsbet.io Players Championship will be broadcast on ITV Sport. The best online bookmakers will also stream the action live.
Players Championship Prize Money
- Winner: £150,000
- Runner-up: £70,000
- Semi-finals: £35,000
- Quarter-finals: £20,000
- Last 16: £15,000
- Highest break: £10,000
- Total purse: £500,000
All matches at the Players Championship are the best-of-11 frames until the best-of-19 frame final. After this event, the top 12 on the one-year ranking list will qualify for the Tour Championship in Manchester (March 31-April 6). It is the penultimate tournament before the World Championship.
