Should Bettors Stake on Mark Williams to Win the Masters?

Mark Williams is one of the best Welsh snooker players of all time, having won three World Champion titles throughout his glittering career in 2000, 2003, and 2018. It’s been a long time since the Welsh Potting Machine has won the Masters, though, and he last picked up a victory in that prestigious contest in 2003.

Williams isn’t favoured by bookies going into the 2023 Masters tournament, but he is bringing some strong form with him. Should bettors take advantage of the long odds and stake on the 47-year-old to prevail?

Williams Considered Outsider for the Masters

The Masters is one of the most important snooker competitions on the planet, and it is always filled with the cream of the crop in the game. For people betting on snooker, the most obvious choice would be to stake on one of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump, or Neil Robertson to win, as these players can all be found at odds of 4/1 at the time of writing.

Mark Williams is an outsider in the snooker betting at 20/1, ranked alongside Mark Allen at the same odds. Some other potential winners include Mark Selby at 8/1, John Higgins at 12/1, and Kyren Wilson at 18/1. With such a wealth of talent, it’s hard to pick a winner. But thanks to Williams’ solid recent showings, he could potentially shock people and emerge as a serious contender.

No Masters Wins for Williams Since 2003

Williams has won the Masters twice in his career, in 1998 and 2003. The last time he picked up a win in the paramount snooker tournament, he was in the form of his life. Indeed, in the 2002-03 season, he won the UK Championship, the Masters, and the World Championship all in the same year. This was some feat, and the only other players to have ever done this are Steve Davis and Stephen Hendry.

After those heady days, Williams’ form started to decline, and many have wondered if he’d ever be able to recapture it fully again. However, he has enjoyed proving people wrong throughout his career, and he has won a variety of high-profile competitions in recent years.

In 2022, Williams finished as the runner up in the Snooker Shoot Out, after winning the British Open and the WST Pro Series in 2021. He also won the World Snooker Championship in 2018, which turned out to be a successful year for the player. All these performances highlight how Williams is far from finished at the top level, and that the bookies may be underestimating him when they are writing their odds for upcoming events.

After picking up some vital wins on the world stage over the last few years, Mark Williams is beginning to recapture the momentum that made him one of the most formidable snooker players in the world in the early 2000s. It could be time for him to shock the established hierarchy and pick up his third Masters win in 2023.

Header Image credit: Mark Williams by DerHexer, Wikimedia Commons, CC-by-sa 4.0