Isolation bubbles and empty seats promise to make the delayed 2020 World Snooker Championship an event like no other.

But beside the unprecedented environment, as players emerge from months of lockdown there is every chance they will find themselves thrust into one of the most open tournaments on record.

Here, we run the rule over the tournament’s top eight seeds in the Snooker World Championship betting – and the other outsiders who may be best-equipped to cope with the unique challenges of this year’s Crucible.

Judd Trump

Few if any have been better equipped to shatter the Crucible curse which dictates that no first-time champion comes back to successfully defend his title.

Winner of a record-breaking six tour titles this season, Trump deserves his status as the outstanding favourite in the Snooker World Championship odds, even if his decade of prior disappointments emphasises he is yet to prove the consistency of some of his illustrious predecessors.

Neil Robertson

This year marks 10 years since Robertson won his first and so far only world title, and his pursuit of that elusive second crown has become a recurring exercise in high expectations and shattered dreams.

Again, this year he heads to the Crucible with all the credentials – note his stunning Champion of Champions final win over Trump last November – while a favourable draw adds up to the feeling this could be his best chance yet.

Mark Williams

Never mind the pundits, it is questionable whether Williams himself genuinely believes he has a realistic chance of adding a fourth world crown to his collection.

The party has never quite stopped since his stunning 2018 triumph over John Higgins, and a relatively lackadaisical season before the shutdown, marked by intimations he had fallen out of love with the game, all but rules him out of the running.

Mark Allen

Allen’s Masters triumph in 2018 was supposed to mark a big-time breakthrough, but despite reaching the UK final the following year, the Northern Irishman continues to flatter to deceive.

Hyped as a title hope last year, he crashed in the first round to China’s Zhou Yuelong. A run to the final of the recent Tour Championship – including a huge win over Mark Selby – bodes well, but as always, Allen is to be approached with caution.

John Higgins

The 45-year-old, four-time winner has developed a remarkable ability to emerge from underwhelming seasons, liberally sprinkled with intimations of imminent retirement to star at the Crucible, as three consecutive final appearances can attest.

Each year a repeat looks increasingly unlikely, only for the Scot, one of the few true masters of the long-form format, to rise to the challenge. An improbable contender, but write him off at your peril.

Ronnie O’Sullivan

He may be by common consensus the best player the game has seen, but O’Sullivan is also the most likely to be negatively affected by the tournament’s expected sterile environment as he goes in search of a sixth crown.

Can Ronnie – stunned by amateur James Cahill last year – really sustain his concentration through a fortnight of effective lockdown?

He finds himself in a favourable section of the draw, but the omens are against him.

Mark Selby

The manner in which Selby won his third world title in 2017 suggested he could go on to dominate the game.

Instead, judged by his own high standards, he has been in free-fall.

Having failed to reached the semi-finals of any ‘triple crown’ event since, winner of just one Crucible match in the last two years, and coming off a crashing Tour Championship loss to Allen, he is difficult to back with any confidence.

Kyren Wilson

Wilson’s supposed status as the game’s coming force has begun to stutter.

A semi-final in 2018 amid an ongoing run of four straight quarter-final appearances at the Crucible both illustrates his consistency whilst flagging up his failure to convert it into major titles.

Wilson’s only ranking title to date remains the 2019 German Masters. A tough draw – he is seeded to face Trump in the last eight – hardly helps his cause.

Stephen Maguire

Well over a decade since he burst onto the scene as a top prospect, Stephen Maguire is belatedly showing signs of starting to fulfil his undoubted potential.

A run to last year’s UK final, followed by a win at the recent Tour Championship which netted him over £250,000, suggests that at the age of 39 his best is yet to come.

Resolutely unruffled by outside influences, the sterile environment could be right up his street.

Stuart Bingham

Since winning the world title in 2015, Bingham has broadly sustained at the top of the game, and his success at this year’s Masters served as a reminder of his talent.

A good draw arguably makes Bingham favourite to reach the last eight, at which point his consistency can kick in in an environment for which, like Maguire, his temperament ought to be suited.

Would be no surprise to see him on the final weekend.

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