The Masters champion Mark Allen is in World Grand Prix action on Tuesday as he takes on China’s Xiao Guodong. Allen finally fulfilled his undoubted potential with a first-ever Triple Crown title at The Masters but his form has been mixed since and he heads into this showdown off the back of consecutive defeats.
The Northern Irishman went down 5-4 to Matthew Selt in the first round of the German Masters and failed to deliver at the Snooker Shoot-Out as he was bested by Tom Ford. World number 29 Guodong has picked up some impressive results recently and beat Mark Selby and Liang Wenbo in the German Masters.
The Chinese star, nicknamed the ‘X-Factor’, struggled at the start of the season but reached consecutive quarter-finals in the Scottish Open and German Masters before his second round Shoot-Out exit, which also came at the hands of Ford. Allen and Guodong have only played each other once, with the latter emerging victorious in the 2015 Shoot-Out, so there isn’t a great deal to go on there and this could be an interesting clash between two in-form players.
Allen, the world number eight, is the 8/13 favourite to progress and he can be backed at 7/2 to win 4-2. Guodong is 5/4 or 8/13 with a +1.5 frames handicap.