Given the disruption snooker has suffered over the last 12 months, this week's World Championship is about a bid for peace as much as selecting this year's pre-eminent player. Following the legal wrangles and poisonous exchanges involving the governing World Snooker Association and the rival TSN (The Sportsmasters Network, now 110 Sport), combined with the inevitable polarising of players as each lined up behind their preferred organisation, the backstage camaraderie will be a little more strained than it has been in the past.

From a spectator's point of view, any one of half a dozen players could walk off with the trophy.

No one has been dominating in the manner of Steve Davis in the 1980s or Stephen Hendry in the 1990s and that, combined with a mediocre run from the holder Mark Williams, makes the draw less of a single issue campaign.

Williams confesses that he is in the middle of a confidence crisis and is hoping that the magnitude of the occasion can kick start his form. Nothing else has been able to retrieve him from the rut in which he currently finds himself.

However, bookmakers William Hill believe in him, perhaps more than he does himself. They have him at 3 to 1 favourite to pick up the £250,000 winner's prize.

"My form's not been that good and I've been lacking a bit of confidence, the same as a lot of top players," says Williams.

"It's an all round thing. Everything's been lacking a bit and once you lose a bit of confidence it affects your whole game."

So an out-of-kilter favourite and a pack biting at his heels. Williams has tried to diffuse the pressure by suggesting that Ronnie O'Sullivan has already one hand on the trophy.

It's a familiar refrain from players who tend to rate O'Sullivan as transcendent on his day but always a long punt to win a two-week competition. O'Sullivan also has a tendency to bring his A game or no game at all.

"It depends how I feel on the day," he said at this year's Irish Masters. "That's just the sort of player I am. If it happens, it happens."

If it happens O'Sullivan could still find Ken Doherty on the horizon. They are on different sides of the draw and Doherty has begun to seize the moment, having shown a reluctance to capitalise on his 1997 success.

The new competitive and hungry side to his game has been nothing short of a revelation. The Thailand Masters and the Regal Welsh followed by his third successive final in Scotland, where Peter Ebdon just edged him out, augurs well.

Better concentration and a run of trophies - deserved given his ability - suggest Doherty has found a consistently higher level of form. He has split the big four of Williams, John Higgins, O'Sullivan and Hendry, shoving the latter into fifth in the world rankings. Clearly it is not the Ken of old.

While Hendry is undoubtedly on a slide, the former champion retains the ability to peak. His edge has become somewhat blunted, but it would be a nonsense to discount the best player of his generation.

Scotland's Higgins hasn't found the knack of winning tournaments this year, although he did finish off 2000 with a win in the UK Championship. The 1999 winner has the potting ability, all round game and tenacity to dominate.

With massive support from family and friends Higgins begins his bid on Tuesday against Graeme Dott and for many in the game is this year's favourite.

Stephen Lee, the fifth seed, has also been promising a lot over the last few seasons while the B&H Masters at Wembley had two players in the final who would be termed outsiders, Paul Hunter and Fergal O'Brien. Add Peter Ebdon's win last week and it's as open a draw as it ever has been.