After three busy days of action at the English Open the field has been whittled down to 32 but those remaining in the tournament will be hoping to play two matches at the Metrodome in Barnsley on Thursday as the last 32 and the last 16 are played out across what is another busy day on the green baize.
The last 32 will be played out in the morning and afternoon sessions with the last 16 to come in the evening and with the amount of top players left in the competition we should see some great action throughout the course of the day. Unfortunately time restrictions will deny us the chance to preview the last 16 but we can go through the last 32.
Morning Session
As ever there is one round of matches in the morning session with Mark Williams on the main table when he takes on Jack Lisowski. Elsewhere Anthony McGill will face Akani Songsermsawad while Aditya Mehta plays Chen Zifan in what is a great chance for both to make the last 16. Alexander Ursenbacher faces Stuart Carrington with Hammad Miak playing Andrew Higginson. The other streamed offering sees Stuart Bingham playing Hossein Vafaei and Kyren Wilson takes on Thor Chuan Leong in the other match.
Afternoon Session
The action on the TV table begins in the afternoon with Ronnie O’Sullivan playing Zhang Yong. The streamed table has John Higgins playing Robert Milkins. The outside tables will be occupied by good players too. There is an all-Chinese battle when Liang Wenbo meets Yan Bingtao while there is a Robertson derby between Jimmy and Neil. Michael White takes on Ben Woollaston with James Wattana facing Yuan Sijun. Shaun Murphy goes up against Liam Highfield in the other game.
The final two matches of this particular round are on the main tables. Judd Trump will face Matthew Stevens in front of the TV cameras with Xiao Guodong facing Mark Selby on the streamed table.
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Betting
This should be a good round of matches with some real top names in action looking to make it through to the evening session. I’m going to take two outsiders to break up the monopoly of the big names.
I backed Jack Lisowski to win the tournament from the second quarter. Sadly his part of the draw hasn’t opened up so he is going to have to do the business himself. He takes on Mark Williams who will be a real challenge but one I think Lisowski can overcome. Lisowski was forced to pull out all the stops in the previous round when 3-1 down to Li Yuan but from there he banged in runs of 77, 80 and 132 to win 4-3. Williams will be a tough customer but he gave Brecel changes in the last round and if Lisowski gets the same chances he can cause the upset.
Liang Wenbo will be on cloud nine at the minute after his 147 on Wednesday but he could come down to earth with a bump on Thursday when he faces his countryman Yan Bingtao. I really like Bingtao’s all-round game and it could be that his safety prowess provides the goods in this one. Bingtao won 6-4 when these two last met and having dropped just one frame in his last three matches he’s clearly in good nick. Wenbo is scoring well but he’s never the tightest and could be vulnerable here.
Tips
WON – Back J.Lisowski to beat M.Williams for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with Paddy Power
Back him here:
WON – Back Y.Bingtao to beat L.Wenbo for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Betfred
Back him here:
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