Impressive Kyren Wilson is ready to claim his first major title

Starts 2.30pm Tuesday
(live on BBC & Eurosport from Saturday)

Ronnie O'Sullivan is the clear favourite to win a seventh Betway UK Championship title in York and with few others seeds appealing as value, the defending champion and top seed could take plenty of stopping.

World number one Mark Selby is the bookmakers' second favourite to win the second most important ranking tournament in the game for a third time and he merits respect. He is the only player in the top four in the betting competing in the bottom half of the draw.

• Betway UK Championship day-one match advice

Judd Trump, who received a major confidence boost when outplaying everyone including O'Sullivan in the Northern Ireland Open recently, has definite claims of adding to his 2011 UK triumph, which featured a brilliant final win against Mark Allen. The evergreen John Higgins is bidding for a fourth win in the tournament but won it only once since 2000.

All four are viable contenders, with O'Sullivan and Trump having arguably the best credentials, but in terms of value it could be wiser to back a player who has either beaten or caused genuine problems for all the top players in recent seasons.

Humphries' best bet
Kyren Wilson 16-1
Kyren Wilson has been in many observers' notebooks since his Shanghai Masters final victory over Trump in 2015. A fallow spell followed his breakthrough success, although Wilson didn't play that poorly in 2016.

The Kettering cueman reached his first major final in the Masters last season but was second best against Mark Allen, another player who is good enough to be crowned UK champion and who has taken a sizeable step forward in the last 12 months.

Wilson was devastated at losing that Alexandra Palace final but it proved to him that he could contend on the big stage. A solid effort in a 17-13 loss to Higgins in the Crucible semi-finals in May also hinted at even better times lying ahead.

This season Wilson, victorious in the Paul Hunter Classic and Six Red World Championship, is looking better again on the baize. He made O'Sullivan toil in the recent Champion of Champions final – the outsider fought back from 5-1 down to level at 9-9 before being pipped 10-9 – and that should put him spot-on for a decent run at the Barbican Centre.

It's a slight concern that Wilson has never made it past the third round of the UK Championship, whose early-round matches were reduced in length to the best of 11 frames in 2013. But bookmakers clearly believe the Warrior, who has all the tools needed to one day become world champion, is capable of belying his mediocre record in York and it's difficult to disagree with their assessment.

Others to note
Aside from the market leaders, there aren't many others who make betting appeal at viable prices in an event which has been dominated down the years by big-name performers.

You have to go back to 2006 for Peter Ebdon's 50-1 triumph, which was the biggest-priced victory since 1991, while O'Sullivan, Matthew Stevens, Stephen Maguire, Ding Junhui, Shaun Murphy, Trump, Selby and Neil Robertson were 28-1, 18-1, 20-1, 40-1, 20-1, 12-1, 14-1 and 8-1 when winning the UK title for the first time.

Of the capable outsiders at large prices, exciting Chinese duo Zhou Yuelong and Zhao Xintong, who is having his best campaign, could see support at hefty three-figure odds, while it will be disappointing if natural talent Michael White fails to make a bigger breakthrough in the game in the coming years.

The pressure should be off the shoulders of Anthony McGill now the able Scot is unseeded and he is a potential major winner, while seasoned campaigner Joe Perry is still capable of making his presence felt in the top grade when he hits peak form.

Recommendation
K Wilson
1pt each-way 16-1 general

Read every day for no-nonsense previews and expert sports betting tips

Today's top sports betting stories

Follow us on Twitter @racingpostsport

Like us on Facebook