The first round of the China Open has been completed and on Wednesday the entire second round will be played out in another frantic day of snooker out in Beijing. At the end of Wednesday just 16 men will remain in the tournament, each with the aim to winning the penultimate event of the season.
The very big names have managed to make it through to the second round relatively unscathed which ensures there will be a decent quality on show on Wednesday across the two sessions of action.
Early Session
Leading the way in the first session of play is the defending champion Judd Trump. Trump will look to continue his fantastic form when he takes on Eden Sharav on one of the main tables. John Higgins plays Mark Davis on the other one.
Such is the depth in quality in this session that Shaun Murphy and Mark Williams can’t get anywhere near the main tables. Murphy will take on the former finalist Gary Wilson on one of the outside tables with Williams facing a tough test against Michael Holt on another. The other four matches see Tian Pengfei facing Martin Gould, Mike Dunn playing Rory McLeod, Ben Woollaston meeting Hossein Vafaei and Ali Carter going up against Michael White.
Late Session
All eyes will be on the all-Chinese battle on one of the main tables in the later session as Zhou Yuelong goes up against the more experienced Ding Junhui while on the other TV table Ronnie O’Sullivan faces Mark Joyce.
Elsewhere the former world champion Stuart Bingham takes on Noppon Saengkham while Kyren Wilson looks to find some form when he plays Sanderson Lam. There is an all-Welsh clash between Daniel Wells and Matthew Stevens and former champion Stephen Maguire faces Li Hang. The world champion Mark Selby is on the outside tables in this session. He takes on Martin O’Donnell and Andrew Higginson plays Ricky Walden in the other game.
Betting
There are a lot of warm favourites on show on Wednesday and in truth I think they will mostly all come through with more than a bit in hand but the prices all reflect that so this isn’t going to be a big betting day for me.
In the end I’ll go with just one bet and it comes on Martin Gould who I expect to be too good for Tian Pengfei. You’ve got to give credit to Pengfei for taking care of Anthony McGill in the first round but the Scot stuck in a shocker of a performance so I’m not certain the Chinese player will go much further.
Gould eased into this round and I expect him to back up his victory over one Chinese player in the first round with another thoroughly comprehensive win against another one on Wednesday.
Tips
Back M.Gould (-1.5 frames) to beat T.Pengfei for a 4/10 stake at 1.70 with Unibet
Back him here:
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