Coral Cup: World Grand Prix first on the agenda for new competition
What is the Coral Cup? Who’s involved? How does it work?
The 2018-19 snooker season is over halfway towards its conclusion and now things are about to get even more serious with the start of the inaugural Coral Cup.
Taking in the Coral World Grand Prix, the Coral Players Championship and the Coral Tour Championship, the Coral Cup isn’t like anything else on the circuit.
Want to know more, find out who’s involved and what the odds are for the first event? Then read on.
What tournaments make up the Coral Cup?
The Coral Cup is made up of three separate tournaments. These are the Coral World Grand Prix (4th-10th February), the Coral Players Championship (4th-10th March) and the Coral Tour Championship (19th-24th March). You’ll be able to tune in to all three on ITV4 over the next couple of months.
Each is a prestigious event in its own right – something which is reflected by the prize money. Win the Grand Prix? You’ll receive £100,000. Take home the Players Championship at the famous Guild Hall? That’s £125,000 in your pocket. And scoop the Tour Championship in Wales? You’re in line for £150,000.
How do you win the Coral Cup?
Qualification for each competition is based on the one-year ranking lists compiled by World Snooker. Players need to be in the top 32 to qualify for the first event, the top 16 to qualify for the second and the top eight to make it to Llandudno. That means there are no guarantees.
Now baize masters will want to make even surer they qualify for all three, because the Coral Cup is decided on accumulated prize money from each of the three events. Any player good enough to win all three won’t just chalk up the Coral Cup – we’ll also round up their prize money to £500,000.
Coral World Grand Prix history
The Coral Cup gets going with the Coral World Grand Prix from Cheltenham Racecourse on Monday, where 32 players will battle it out over seven days. Previous iterations of the tournament suggest we could be for a new winner, with no player able to retain the competition the following season in its four-year history.
Shaun Murphy, Judd Trump, Barry Hawkins and Ronnie O’Sullivan have all emerged triumphant. And all four are among the upper-quarter of the market this time around.
Coral World Grand Prix odds
The Rocket may have been thrashed in the Masters Final but he remains the 9/4 favourite to take an early Coral Cup lead here.
Trump was O’Sullivan’s conqueror in London with a pulsating 10-4 victory in a wonderful display of long potting and precision. The Coral traders go 9/2 about the Juddernaut following it up with another win in the Grand Prix, with Mark Selby and Mark Allen further back at 7/1 and 12/1.
Current world champion Mark Williams is also at 12/1, which puts him just ahead of the veteran John Higgins and inconsistent Stuart Bingham at 14s.
Young pretender Kyren Wilson will be hoping for a big run after winning the Paul Hunter Classic in 2018. He also reached the Champion of Champion Final and is 20/1 for a minor shock in Gloucestershire.
Plus, keep an eye out on the @Coral Twitter feed for an interview with Ryan Day and Mathew Stevens ahead of the tournament!
Click here for the latest Coral World Grand Prix odds
All Odds and Markets correct as of the date of publishing.
