Snooker stars descend on the rock

Selby favourite for Gibraltar Open

Gibraltar’s Victoria Stadium is the unlikely setting for a major sporting competition, but that is exactly what punters have in front of them this weekend as the 2017 Gibraltar Open gets underway.

With the set-up transformed, it is now a ranking event, for the first time, and is the 16^th ranking snooker tournament of the season. As a result, we see a host of the sport’s major names jet in, including the likes of Mark Selby, Judd Trump and John Higgins.

Marco Fu is the competition’s champion, but he chose not to travel and defend this year, which caught many off-guard. The betting looks wide-open and Mark Selby goes into the weekend as the traders’ pick, with 4/1 available at Coral before a cue has been chalked.

Michael White got to the final last year, beaten 4-1 by Fu for the prize money, so you may expect him to go close again, but this is a very different line-up, and his outright price of 150/1 tells the story of how he should cope.

Trust Trump’s form

With questions marks hanging over the market leader’s form, a play on Judd Trump looks worthwhile. The 27-year-old from Bristol, currently ranked fourth, has been a consistent sort for much of the season, and was a beaten finalist in the Welsh Open recently. Now, we fancied him to come out on top in the final vs eventual winner Stuart Bingham, but his chances were over that day almost before they had begun.

Judd Trump suffered a horrible start at the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, going down 4-0, and it looked like he was in for a miserable beating. He did stage an impressive fightback however, losing 9-8, and would’ve left the venue that evening knowing that he had lost to himself, not Bingham. Lessons would have been learned and the fans’ favourite will be desperate to prove it with a good showing here.