Such is the snooker world at the minute that as one qualifying competition ends another begins the day after and that is the case on Thursday when the qualis for the European Masters begins at the Guild Hall in Preston.
Over the next two days the 118 players will try their luck at winning a best-of-seven frame match to try and qualify for the final stages which take place in Belgium in October. We have four sessions of play to enjoy on Thursday with some big names scheduled to be on show.
10am Session
It all gets underway on the streamed tables with a couple of juicy matches as Barry Hawkins takes on Ken Doherty on one and Dave Gilbert playing Nigel Bond on the other. Elsewhere Adam Duffy plays Liam Highfield, Jamie Jones meets Christopher Keogan, Jimmy Robertson and Sam Baird clash, as do Alan McManus and Matthew Bolton. Chen Zifan meets Hammad Miah in the other match.
1pm Session
Mark King and Kurt Maflin will battle it out on one of the streamed tables in this session with Kyren Wilson and Xu Si on the other one. Martin O’Donnell takes on Rory McLeod away from the cameras as do Robin Hull and Zhang Yong. Ben Woollaston meets Ian Burns while Andrew Higginson faces Gerard Greene. Yuan Sijun plays Allan Taylor and Zhao Xintong goes up against Lee Walker.
4pm Session
Mark Allen is the big name on show in this session. He plays Daniel Wells on a streamed table and Martin Gould meets Duane Jones on the other. We have Gary Wilson against Hossein Vafaei elsewhere along with Rod Lawler against Fang Xiongman. Peter Ebdon plays Akani Songsermsawad while David Grace meets Yan Bingtao. Anthony Hamilton plays David John in the other game.
7pm Session
This session is scheduled to be all about Neil Robertson. He is due to play Jamie Barrett but he did pull out of Indian Open qualifying so it will be interesting to see if he plays here. That is on one streamed table with Michael Holt against Paul Davison on the other one. Jimmy White meets Billy Joe Castle on an outside table while Ross Muir and Sean O’Sullivan also meet. Aditya Mehta and Wang Yuchen compete in another match with Hu Hao against Noppon Saengkham and Tom Ford against Cao Yupeng rounding off the day.
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Betting
I’m going with three bets on Thursday. They begin in the 1pm session where Kurt Maflin looks overpriced to see off Mark King. Maflin came through Indian Open qualifying and did so scoring well. King also won his Indian qualifier but his scoring was nothing like as good. If this goes scrappy then King will probably prevail but if Maflin can get in and score I would make him favourite. At 6/5 he looks a worthy bet here.
Mark Allen may be one of the biggest names in action on Thursday but I think he faces a tricky challenge from Daniel Wells. Allen needed a deciding frame to get past Thor Chuan Leong in Indian Open qualifying and now takes on a Wells who scored brilliantly in his Indian Open win and who should be full of confidence from that. Allen has a new born back home so if his mind is elsewhere it would be understandable and at just under 4/1 Wells looks a decent price to chance in this one.
In the evening session I am taking Sean O’Sullivan to follow up his Indian Open win when he takes on Ross Muir. He beat Xiao Guodong in that match and now takes on a Muir who is yet to win a match this season. Confidence is a big thing in this sport and that should be with O’Sullivan in this one as is my money.
Tips
Back K.Maflin to beat M.King for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Coral
Back him here:
Back D.Wells to beat M.Allen for a 2/10 stake at 4.75 with Bwin
Back him here:
Back S.O’Sullivan to beat R.Muir for a 4/10 stake at 1.87 with Unibet
Back him here:
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