The qualifying event for the Riga Masters has finished but the World Snooker tour players don’t have to wait long for their next qualifying campaign as it begins on Saturday when the China Championship early stages get underway.
We have four days of qualifying for the event out in China which wasn’t a ranking event last season but is this time around. We are up to the best of nine frames for each of them and the competition begins with three sessions on Saturday.
Morning Session
There are five matches in the morning session with the two matches on the streamed tables seeing Anthony McGill going up against Craig Steadman and Dominic Dale taking on the Chinese player Chen Zifan.
Outside of them we have Noppon Saengkham facing Rhys Clark while Zhou Yuelong goes up against Noppon Saengkham and the other game sees Mike Dunn and Alex Borg meeting in a battle of the veterans.
Afternoon Session
Five more matches take place in this session too. Mark Allen meets Lee Walker on one of the streamed tables with the other one seeing the Welsh Potting Machine himself Mark Williams playing Jak Jones in an all-Welsh battle.
On the other tables Stephen Maguire will be looking to make it through to the main event when he takes on Jamie Barrett while Mark Joyce plays Rod Lawler and Martin Gould battles Adam Duffy.
Evening Session
Stuart Bingham will be on the streamed table in this session. He faces the lesser known Billy Joe Castle while Shaun Murphy is also competing in this session when he meets Zhang Anda.
Yan Bingtao and Wang Yuchen meet in an all-Chinese battle to get into a home event on an outside table while Kyren Wilson plays Michael Georgiou and Gary Wilson goes up against Ken Doherty.
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Betting
I’m going to ease myself in to this qualifying event with just the one bet and it comes on Gary Wilson who I expect to have too much for Ken Doherty. Wilson ended last season by running Ronnie O’Sullivan close in the World Championship and playing well and anything close to that performance will be more than enough here.
I give full credit to Ken Doherty for qualifying for Riga but Peter Lines was a shambles against him in truth. I don’t expect Wilson to be that bad and I expect the Englishman to see Doherty off with a bit to spare.
Tips
Back G.Wilson (-1.5 frames) to beat K.Doherty for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Paddy Power
Back him here:
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