DING JUNHUI looks well set on bagging his second ranking title of an impressive season and he should be backed at 8-11 with Coral to defeat the resurgent Mark Williams in the final of the Sanyuan Foods China Open.
Chinese sensation Ding never looked in any trouble in his semi-final against Mark Allen and cracked in another couple of century breaks – six for the tournament – in dispatching of the Northern Irishman 6-2 in front of a partisan crowd at the Beijing Students University Stadium.
It really has been a turnaround in fortunes for Ding this season as he struggled to cope with the limelight and pressure of being in the spotlight, dropping down to 13th in the world. But this season he has reached the quarter-final of the Shanghai Masters, final of the Grand Prix, won the UK Championship and now finds himself in his third final and is up to fifth in the provisional rankings. Everything is rosy again in the world of Ding.
Renaissance man Williams has rolled back the years this campaign with some vintage displays, proving to everybody that the old Mark Williams is still in evidence and he, like Ding, has shot up the rankings from 15th – and facing a battle to retain his top-16 status – to eighth.
The Welshman showed tremendous resilience on Saturday to fight back from 3-1 down against Ali Carter to defeat the 'Captain' 6-4 and book his place in a rare final. He is a best price of 5-4 with Stan James to overturn the formbook, but on the performances of the past week, I just don't think he will be able to contain a rampant Ding and I actually think it's worth having a couple of bets at the correct score, with a 10-5 success for Ding available at 11-1 and the 10-4 on offer 16s.
