2025 Players Championship snooker betting tips

Following a recent double-header in Far East Asia, the World Snooker Tour returns to English shores this week. 

The 2025 Players Championship taking place at the Telford International Centre between 17-23 March. For fans in the UK, the event is live throughout on ITV4 from Monday evening. 

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The third-to-last event of the season, the Players Championship is the second of three Players Series tournaments this term, sandwiched between Neil Robertson's triumph at the World Grand Prix in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago, and the Tour Championship in Manchester that starts at the end of this month.

Only the top 16 players from the one-year ranking list - the cueists who have won the most prize money in ranking competition since last summer - have been invited to Telford, meaning there is an elite field raring to go for the £150,000 top prize. 

All matches are the best of 11 frames, except for the two-session final which is the first to 10. 

World number one Judd Trump extends his record as the only player to have qualified for every Players Championship edition since the event's introduction to the professional circuit in 2017.

Winner of this season's two most important ranking trophies, so far, - Saudi Arabia Masters, UK Championship - Trump arrives here as the number one seed and the pre-tournament favourite (5/2 BetMGM). You can't rule out the value short-priced favourites can offer your betting strategy.

'The ace in the pack' sits at the top of the draw and in round one faces number 16 seed Lei Peifan - a Chinese youngster who stunned the sport a few months ago when he emerged from relative obscurity to win the Scottish Open as the world number 84. 

Whilst you'd expect Trump to navigate Peifan, his outright odds appear skinny considering the overall quality of the field and the fact he hasn't appeared in a final since his UK triumph at the start of December. 

Awaiting Trump in the quarter-finals could be Shaun Murphy, if the reigning Masters champion can dispatch Barry Hawkins first up. 

Murphy has been in great form in 2025; on top of his win at the Alexandra Palace, 'The Magician' has hit two maximum 147 breaks on the tour. 

In the past few weeks reached the quarter-finals of the World Open and semi-finals of the World Grand Prix. On both occasions, it took an inspired opponent to deny him. 

Elsewhere in the top half of the draw, there is an all-Chinese affair between Xiao Guodong and Wu Yize - two players who are easily enjoying their best-ever seasons as professionals - and a rejuvenated John Higgins who shares the baize with Chris Wakelin.

FIRST’s top tip for the 2025 Players Championship - Shaun Murphy

Murphy's iron is still very hot. He narrowly missed out on the World Grand Prix final earlier this month after eventual champion Neil Robertson came back from two down with three to play in the semi-finals (not allowing Murphy to score a single point during that spell). 

Winner of this Players Championship title in 2023 - and runner-up in 2018 - Murphy won't be afraid of a potential match-up with Trump or Higgins in later rounds; he stopped Higgins' recent winning streak in the last eight of the World Grand Prix. 

The Masters, which Murphy won some eight weeks ago, resembles almost exactly the same format as this event, with 16 players and best of 11 frame matches.

Pick: Shaun Murphy is 11/1 to win the 2025 Players Championship (Coral)

Higgins can have another good run

Having ended a four-year wait for a ranking title at the World Open earlier this month, John Higgins is back and bouncing.

I expect the four-time world champ to defeat an out-of-form Wakelin first up, he would then need to get past either Xiao or Wu to be in the semis.

Pick: John Higgins is 5/4 with BetMGM to win quarter two

Star-studded bottom-half, but Williams loves an ITV event

The Players Championship is an elite-field competition, but the bottom half of this year’s draw appears particularly stacked with six of the eight players there being multiple-time Triple Crown event winners, and the current Crucible King.

Going on recent history and results, you’d expect reigning World Champion Kyren Wilson to be second-favourite – as he has been for the past several tournaments. 

But Wilson generally goes off fifth in the outright standings here due to playing defending Players Championship title holder Mark Allen in a blockbuster round 1 tie. Allen is low on confidence and only sneaked in as the number 15 seed.

It has been a season for established stars returning to the winner’s podium; as well as Higgins, Mark Selby and Robertson have also ended title waits. 

Those last two names will meet in the quarter-finals here if they respectively get past Si Jiahui and Stuart Bingham.

Robertson will be coming here brimming with confidence after his 10-0 final win over Bingham at the World Grand Prix. 

Although the Australian is the most prolific winner of Players Series events, winning back-to-back ranking titles is uncommon on the professional circuit these days. 

Before a ball is struck in Telford, Selby, Robertson, Higgins and Wilson are all very close together in the outright odds.

The other match in the bottom half is Mark Williams v Ding Junhui – essentially a coin flip, with neither player in great recent form. Ding ousted Williams in a deciding frame at the Masters in January.

As this half is so tough to predict, I’d have more fun backing a longer shot such as Williams - who celebrates his 50th birthday during the event -  to get through it.

It has been an inconsistent season for the Welshman, but he narrowly missed out in the final of the Saudi Arabia Masters and won the Champion of Champions.

To me, it seems like these days, Williams gets up more for top-tier and smaller field events such as these. He also loves playing in front of the ITV cameras – he has won four of the last 17 singles events broadcast on the channel, including two of the last three.

FIRST’s value pick – Mark Williams

Williams isn’t in great nick but may find inspiration in this familiar environment.

The world number five won the Tour Championship last season without great recent form and lifted the Champion of Champions trophy back in November having never won a match in the event before.

Can he come out of the blue and add another title to his illustrious career CV? Mark Williams is 18/1 (Ladbrokes) to win the 2025 Players Championship.

In the ‘name the finalists’ market, a Shaun Murphy vs Mark Williams final is priced up at 66/1 (Betway)

Odds correct at the time of writing.