The first round of the UK Championship draws to a close on Thursday when the final set of matches are played ahead of the tournament having a day off on Friday before the televised stages begin. We’ve seen some excellent snooker so far mixed in with some bizarre occurrences and with plenty of big names on show on Thursday the quality should be maintained.
Morning Session
The two matches on the main tables at the beginning of the day are the ones between Mark Williams and Jason Weston along with Ali Carter against Christopher Keogan.
As always the other six tables are in operation in this session with Andrew Higginson taking on Hossein Vafaei Ayouri on one of them along with Robbie Williams against Akani Songsermsawad, Stephen Maguire and Cao Yupeng, David Grace and Zhou Xintong, Dominic Dale plays Sanderson Lam and in the other match Graeme Dott meets Ian Preece.
Afternoon Session
This is the session where the last two world champions begin their quest for the UK title. Stuart Bingham is on one of the main tables when he goes up against Adam Stefanow while Mark Selby takes on Andy Hicks.
Elsewhere Alan McManus faces Michael Wild, Jamie Jones plays Eden Sharav, Jimmy Robertson meets Thor Chuan Leong, Mark Davis goes up against Sydney Wilson while Yu Delu plays Nigel Bond and Ian Burns takes on Daniel Wells.
Evening Session
Neil Robertson begins the defence of his title on one of the main tables in this session. He takes on Peter Lines while the other streamed match sees Joe Perry meeting Jamie Barrett.
On the outside tables Alfie Burden plays Chris Wakelin, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh meets Liam Highfield, Peter Ebdon plays Wang Yuchen, Matthew Stevens plays James Cahill, Michael White takes on Fraser Patrick and Xiao Guodong faces John Astley.
Betting
I’m going with three more bets to end the final round with. Two of them are in the morning session and see Zhao Xintong up against David Grace and Akani Songsermsawad playing Robbie Williams.
Grace did excellently well here last year but he’s up against one of the best young talents in the game here. I wonder if last year’s exertions in this tournament will have increased the expectations on him in this year’s renewal and if it has it would make sense for him to struggle. We saw all that Xintong is about when he made those centuries against Ronnie O’Sullivan in the English Open recently and that scoring power can be enough to get the job done here.
I’ve backed Songsermsawad a few times recently to good effect and I’m prepared to do that again here against a Robbie Williams who blows a little too hot and cold for my liking. On his day Williams can match anyone but we’ve not seen many of those days in recent times and that is potential to the Thai’s advantage. We know Songsermsawad is playing well and we’ll back that up with our cash.
The scorer against the non-scorer theme continues when Yu Delu plays Nigel Bond. Delu hadn’t been offering much this season but then suddenly he took care of Ding Junhui in Northern Ireland last week and that should have given him a lot of confidence. Nigel Bond can still scrap it out but over this distance you need to score too. With that in mind I think Delu is a fair punt.
Tips
WON – Back Z.Xintong to beat D.Grace for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with NetBet
Back him here:
Back A.Songsermsawad to beat R.Williams for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with William Hill
Back him here:
WON – Back Y.Delu to beat N.Bond for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfred
Back him here:
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