HOPES of a home win at this year’s BetVictor Northern Ireland Open will rest on the shoulders of Antrim duo Mark Allen and Jordan Brown.
The action begins at the Waterfront in Belfast this Sunday morning, and world number 46 Brown is in the action early (11am) as he takes on world number 23 Robert Milkins.
Both men are ranking event winners in recent years, but both could do with finding some form, particularly Milkins, who has won just one game this season so far and sits at 114 on the one-year ranking list.
Brown has beaten the likes of Kyren Wilson and Neil Robertson in his home event but never got past round two. This season, he has also managed to get over the first hurdle at the Xi’an Grand Prix, Wuhan Open and Saudi Arabia Masters and also beat Liam Davies 4-1 to qualify for the final stages of this event, but he could do with a run deep into a tournament to keep himself well inside the world’s top 64.
His Antrim club-mate Allen, who pulled out of last week’s Wuhan Open for personal reasons, thrilled the home crowds to take home the Alex Higgins Trophy in 2021 and 2022, and he starts off against Liu Hongyu of China on Monday evening.
World number one Judd Trump turns up chasing a fifth win at the event. He claimed a hat-trick of 9-7 final wins over Ronnie O’Sullivan between 2018 and 2020 before regaining the title last year with a 9-3 win over Chris Wakelin. He starts off against India’s Ishpreet Singh Chadha on Sunday afternoon, while O’Sullivan is scheduled to face Long Zehuang on Monday afternoon.
Also in action on day one will be World Championship runner-up Jak Jones (v Alexander Ursenbacher), 2023 world champion Luca Brecel (v He Guoqiang), recent British Open winner Mark Selby (v Louis Heathcote) and Shaun Murphy (v Jiang Jun)
