The qualifying competition for the European Masters draws to a close on Friday with another busy day of snooker action inside the Guild Hall in Preston as the players yet to have the chance to book their spot in the main draw get the opportunity to do so.
That means we have the likes of Ali Carter, John Higgins, Shaun Murphy and Stuart Bingham in action across the four sessions of play.
10am Session
Anthony McGill is the star player in this session. He takes on Matthew Stevens on one of the streamed matches with Ricky Walden facing Alfie Burden on the other. There are big chances for lesser ranked players in this session with Elliot Slessor meeting Eden Sharav, Jak Jones playing Fergal O’Brien, Li Hang going up against Alexander Ursenbacher, Mark Davis meeting Kurt Dunham, Rhys Clark playing Matt Selt and James Wattana taking on Joe Swail.
1pm Session
Two exciting players meet on one of the streamed tables in this session when Michael White meets Thepchaiya Un-Nooh with Ryan Day going up against Lukas Kleckers in the other one. Stuart Carrington takes on Chen Zhe in one of the outside matches with Peter Lines playing Alex Borg, Scott Donaldson facing Oliver Lines, Zhou Yuelong meeting Robbie Williams. Michael Georgiou playing Yu Delu and Jackson Page going up against Mitchell Mann in the other matches.
4pm Session
Stuart Bingham looks to qualify for Belgium when he takes on Tian Pengfei on one of the streamed tables with Ali Carter meeting Mei Xiwen on the other. Graeme Dott plays Craig Steadman on the outside tables with Jamie Rhys Clarke meeting Xiao Guodong, Josh Boileau playing Chris Wakelin, Ashley Hugill facing Thor Chuan Leong and Soheil Vahedi playing Mike Dunn in the rest of the game.
7pm Session
John Higgins and Shaun Murphy are the standout names in this session. Higgins plays Niu Zhuang on one streamed table and Murphy goes up against John Astley on the other. Joe Perry meets Boonyarit Kaettikun, Jack Lisowski plays Zhang Anda, Stephen Maguire takes on Li Yuan, Sanderson Lam has a meeting with Ian Preece and Robert Milkins plays Lu Haotian away from the spotlight.
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Betting
This has been a rubbish week of qualifying betting wise for me. Some of the picks have run out of luck at key times and others have been awful but I’m looking to turn the tide with three on Friday.
First up I am going to take on Ricky Walden again. I took him on earlier in the week when he beat Jimmy White but he did not play well. He faces Alfie Burden on Friday and Burden has won their last three meetings so he will carry some confidence into the match especially having qualified for the Indian Open. I’m still convinced Walden is nowhere near his normal level so I will go with Burden here.
Zhou Yuelong is one of the better players in the game now and I expect him to make short work of a Robbie Williams who just doesn’t have the scoring power to compete with the Chinese player when Zhou is on form. Williams lost to Rod Lawler earlier in the week in a match where he got bogged down while Zhou thrashed Kurt Dunham. I expect Zhou to win this too.
Soheil Vahedi had a brilliant win over Martin Gould in the Indian Open qualifying and he looks a good price to see off Mike Dunn on Friday. Dunn won earlier in the week himself but his best days may well be behind him. We saw when Vahedi made the last four of the World Games last week that he can play the game and the confidence he has from there and his win over Gould can give him every chance here.
Tips
WON – Back A.Burden to beat R.Walden for a 3/10 stake at 3.50 with Coral
Back him here:
WON – Back Z.Yuelong to beat R.Williams for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bwin
Back him here:
WON – Back S.Vahedi to beat M.Dunn for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Bet365
Back him here:
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