World Championship: Who could challenge Ronnie O’Sullivan, Judd Trump and become a first-time Crucible winner?

Here is a fact to blow your mind: the last World Championship to feature two debut Crucible finalists was back in 1981.

Steve Davis and Doug Mountjoy were each appearing in the world final for the first time. In every world title match in the 42 years since at least one of the finalists has been either a previous winner or runner-up.

This illustrates that there are certain players better suited to come good in Sheffield than others, that they monopolise the latter stages of the championship – and how hard it is for first time winners to land the most prized trophy in snooker.

In the last 15 years there have only been four first time champions: Neil Robertson (2010), Mark Selby (2014), Stuart Bingham (2015) and Judd Trump (2019). Selby has won it on a further three occasions while Ronnie O’Sullivan, John Higgins and Mark Williams have all added to their title hauls in this period.

In the case of Selby, Trump and Williams, they had each lost in a world final before becoming champion and, when assessing possible first-time winners, previous Crucible records are relevant to the discussion.

For instance, both Kyren Wilson and Ding Junhui have already been beaten finalists, which means they have survived the epic three-day, four session semi-finals on at least one occasion.

These best-of-33-frame matches can be brutal affairs, bearing in mind there is then a best of 35 final to play. Wilson of course came through one of the most famous of all in 2020 when he edged Anthony McGill 17-16 after a deciding frame full of incident and drama.

He was then beaten 18-8 by O’Sullivan, but Wilson has also appeared in two other Crucible semis and three quarter-finals. His never-say-die approach is exactly what a player needs in Sheffield, where matches are long and the momentum shifts several times.

In multi-session matches, it’s important to dig in. So much of the mental work is done between sessions, ensuring a positive attitude when returning to the arena. In these areas, Wilson excels. If he can bring his scoring game to the Crucible, he is a major threat.

Ding was runner-up to Selby in 2016. He lost the first six frames of that final and never quite recovered, losing 18-14. He reached the semi-finals the following year but has managed only one quarter-final since.

These days Ding seems to only come good now and again. He reached the UK Championship final this season but was quiet again for a few months before winning the six reds world title in Thailand.

But this does not mean that he won’t be dangerous this year, with a possible meeting with O’Sullivan in round two. The last time they played in a ranking event at the UK Championship, Ding completed a 6-0 whitewash.

There was a time when he looked an almost certain winner of the game’s most coveted title. He has faded and come back several times since. His break-building is much admired by his fellow players and if he were to beat O’Sullivan then why not go much further?

But the most obvious candidate to become a first time world champion this year is Mark Allen, who has enjoyed the best season of his career.

He arrives in Sheffield third in the world rankings, his highest ever position, having won three ranking titles during the campaign: the Northern Ireland Open, UK Championship and World Grand Prix.

Allen departed last year’s World Championship at something of a personal and professional crossroads. He was hammered 13-4 in the second round by O’Sullivan, after which he sought out the GOAT for a chat.

This was not so much a conversation between two snooker players as a heart-to-heart between human beings who have both endured their share of distracting off table issues. Much of O’Sullivan’s contentment is based around his physical fitness.

Allen had already been told by a friend that he had a weight problem which needed addressing. O’Sullivan’s advice about diet and general health resonated and the Northern Irishman returned for the new season looking and feeling markedly different.

It was not only the weight loss itself but the self-esteem he gained from making significant life changes. Allen has applied this dedicated attitude to his snooker, becoming a much harder all-round player.

In fact, some argue he has become too much of a hardman, losing some fluency or even joy from his game, but Allen himself is adamant that the new approach has worked.

His Crucible record is unimpressive for a player who has enjoyed much success elsewhere, with just one semi-final berth in 16 appearances on the sport’s most famous stage. So the 2023 edition of snooker’s greatest show is something of an acid test for Allen: all the evidence suggests he should do well, but the World Championship is so different from any other event that form coming in is not always a factor.

Of the top 16 seeds this year, eight are previous winners and three more have reached the final.

Allen and Gary Wilson have been semi-finalists, Jack Lisowski has reached the quarter-finals and Robert Milkins has been to the last 16. Luca Brecel has failed in five previous appearances to get past the opening round.

Of these, Wilson has the sort of steel which suggests he could be a handful. He beat Selby on his run to the last four in 2019 and is set to meet the four-times champion in the second round this year.

As for Lisowski… It seems we’ve been here before. The long wait for a maiden title continues for this brilliantly talented, if at times confounding, left-hander.

However there were clear signs last year that Lisowski can handle the pressure of the Crucible. He defeated Robertson, the tournament favourite, 13-12 in the second round and took the vastly experienced Higgins all the way to a decider in the quarters, narrowly missing out on a showdown with O’Sullivan in the last four.

Joe Johnson, another attractively natural talent, proved in 1986 that it’s possible to find inspiration in Sheffield even if you don’t have the career record behind you. Johnson is a Yorkshireman so had plenty of support anyway, but the wider public bought into his story and he became their favourite.

Lisowski is similarly likeable and could rely on huge crowd support if he got on a run – but ‘if’ is the longest word in sport.

There will be some potential first time winners to come out of the qualifiers, but only two players have ever won the world title having not been seeded – Terry Griffiths in 1979 and Shaun Murphy in 2005.

So when the engraver gets to work on May 1, the odds are they will be inscribing a name that is already on the trophy – unless one of the first timers can kick down the door to gain entry to snooker’s most exclusive club.

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