By Elliott West
“This is without question the strongest field we have ever had for the BetVictor Gibraltar Open, with so many of our sport’s all-time greats in the draw. For snooker fans in the region it’s an incredible opportunity to see the top stars of snooker’s golden era for the price of a single ticket”.
World Snooker
Introduction
After two years of snooker confinement, the game finally gets to make a live visit to Gibraltar for the Gibraltar Open. Following on from the Turkish Masters in Antalya, this second away trip for the snooker calendar takes the players on the main tour including Ronnie O’Sullivan to the Europa Point Sports Complex, Gibraltar for the BetVictor Gibraltar Open, a tournament that has a prize fund of £251,000 and a winner’s cheque for £50,000. This will take place between the 24th – 26th of March 20022.
Last year this event had to be played at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes due to Covid restrictions and was won by Judd Trump, beating his long time friend, Jack Lisowski 4-0. This tournament has improved over the years and has come a long way since it first started in 2015 as part of the Players Tour Championship. A start that I remember vividly where play was regularly accompanied by the loud noise of planes taking off and landing at the nearby airport. That year it was won by Marco Fu and after a break of a year, has since been won by Shaun Murphy, Ryan Day, Stuart Bingham and Judd Trump for the last two years.
All Eyes on the Prize
With a field of 128 players, this will definitely be a frenzied 72 hours of snooker to find a champion. The favourite will of course be Judd Trump as he comes into this tournament with fabulous form from the Turkish Masters after beating Matthew Selt 10-4 in the final, making a 147 break and winning a whopping £100,000 and an enormous trophy that was half the size of him. Judd will be hungry to make this year a hat trick in Gibraltar and all eyes will be on him as he plays his matches.
The seventh edition of this tournament is interesting because it is quickly followed by the Cazoo Tour Championship at Venue Cymru in Llandudno between the 28th March – 3rd April 2022. . On paper, it looks likely that one of the top 16 will win in Gibraltar and with only eight players from the elite in the following tournament, players such as Ronnie O’Sullivan will be eyeing up back to back titles. He will play his old foe, Mark Williams, in the quarter-finals stages of the event in North Wales.
Ronnie will play Ben Woollaston in round one in Gibraltar and Judd is up against Andrew Higginson. Other interesting draws include Shaun Murphy against Ken Doherty, Neil Robertson versus Liang Wenbo and Gary Wilson up against Mark King. Also, watch out for Hossein Vafaei who has gained massive confidence and form after winning this year’s Snooker Shootout and is up against Wales’s Jak Jones.
Afterthoughts
In order to conquer the metaphorical rock in Gibraltar, the winner will have to battle hard and get past a multitude of players to claim this sought after calendar title. The stumbling block will be Judd Trump and it really depends if he continues his form or returns to stall mode as he has done for much of the season. It will definitely hurt Judd if he exits early or is pipped at the post. It remains to be seen if the Chinese contingent can challenge him for the trophy but if you look at the last couple of tournament winners, a shock winner is definitely still a possibility and remains firmly on the cards.
