It is Last 16 day at the International Championship on Wednesday with the incentive for the 16 players involved being that a win here will guarantee them the spectacle of the TV table in the next round with every match in the tournament from Thursday onwards being on the main tables.
Marco Fu was the only top 16 player to fall by the wayside in the second round on Tuesday in what was a pretty remarkable day of snooker and that means we are set for a top quality finale to this tournament.
Early Session
We’re down to four matches per session on Wednesday with the opening four matches of the day seeing Mark Selby taking on Liang Wenbo on the TV table with John Higgins going up against Zhou Yuelong on the other.
Away from the cameras there are two more excellent matches with Stuart Bingham against Ali Carter having the potential for fireworks. Sam Baird takes on Shaun Murphy in the other match in the session.
Late Session
Not for the first time this week Ding Junhui and Ronnie O’Sullivan are the main attractions on the TV tables. Ding has a particularly tricky looking match against Ricky Walden while O’Sullivan will be looking for revenge against Michael Holt after the Nottingham man took care of him in the Shanghai Masters.
The outside tables should have competitive and high quality snooker on them too as Neil Robertson takes on his good friend Joe Perry on one of them with James Wattana looking to continue his good run when he plays Judd Trump.
Betting
Earlier cards in this tournament have been scratchy in terms of bets but this one is much more presentable and as such I’m going on the attack despite an agonising loss on Maguire on Tuesday from 5-2 up.
I’m hitting the morning session with two bets and the first one of those is on Maguire’s conqueror Ali Carter. I took Carter on in the last round as Maguire was a bad match up for him but he came through that and now he has a good match up against a Stuart Bingham who he has the wood over despite a defeat to him at the Shanghai Masters earlier in the season.
I’ve mentioned Carter’s excellent record against Bingham in previous tournaments and despite that recent defeat he still leads it 15-5. Bingham has done well to come through this week but he hasn’t pulled up too many trees so at odds against I’ll take Carter who knows he can beat his Essex rival and who should be freerolling having thought he was going home when 5-2 down to Maguire on Tuesday.
The other bet in the early session is on Sam Baird. I thought about taking him to win the match but in the end I wasn’t brave enough so I’m siding with him with the 2.5 frames head start. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Baird comes through and wins this one.
Murphy doesn’t look anything like the player we know he can be and already this week two opponents of lesser standing in the rankings have had a chance to take care of him. They’ve not done it but Baird very much might. If he doesn’t I think he’ll make it to four frames.
In the later session I just have to take on Ronnie O’Sullivan. Admittedly taking the Rocket on has been the quick way to the poor house down the years but he has met Michael Holt twice this year and lost on both occasions. The most recent meeting between the two was in the Shanghai Masters last month and it was that game which caught my eye.
Holt clearly had a gameplan in that match to keep everything at long distance and be patient knowing his chances would come. It frustrated O’Sullivan and eventually Holt had his man and I’m expecting the same thing to happen here too. O’Sullivan isn’t firing on all cylinders at the minute so Holt has every chance here. Whether he wins or not I’m not sure but he can stay close.
Finally I’m going to take a chance on Joe Perry nailing a century in his match against Neil Robertson. Perry is scoring very nicely this week. He has three tons in his 12 winning frames this week and when last he met Robertson, in the semi-final of the World Open earlier this season, he nailed three centuries in as many frames. With that in mind the 5/2 on Perry to go big at some point in this match is too big to ignore.
Tips
Back A.Carter to beat S.Bingham for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with Coral
WON – Back M.Holt (+2.5 frames) to beat R.O’Sullivan for a 4/10 stake at 2.15 with Coral
Back them here:
Back S.Baird (+2.5 frames) to beat S.Murphy for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Betfred
Back him here:
Back J.Perry Over 0.5 centuries for a 3/10 stake at 3.50 with Bet365
Back it here:
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