A week of qualifying for the upcoming big snooker tournaments begins on Tuesday when the opening round of the Indian Open commences inside the Guild Hall in Preston.
There are two days of qualifying for this event with half the field in action on Tuesday and the other half having to wait until Wednesday to try and win the match they need to win to make it to the final stages. Among the big names on show in the opening day are Neil Robertson, Stuart Bingham, Jimmy White and Ali Carter. Sessions begin at 10am, 1pm, 4pm and 7pm so there is plenty of action to get stuck into.
10am Session
Anthony Hamilton is the highest ranked player on show in this session. He takes on Alex Borg while Michael White meets Gerard Greene. Mitchell Mann takes on Ashley Hugill in another of the early matches with Thepchaiya Un-Nooh playing the youngster Jackson Page in another. Rory McLeod meets Ross Muir and Hossein Vafaei plays Sanderson Lam. The other two matches sees Tian Pengfei playing Eden Sharav and Tom Ford facing Chris Totten.
1pm Session
We have seven matches in this session with the pick of them being the one between Ali Carter and Ken Doherty. There is an all-Chinese battle between Anda Zhang and Li Haotian while Martin Gould meets Soheil Vahedi. John Astley has a meeting with Paul Davison with Mei Xiwen taking on Duane Jones in another match. Matthew Selt meets Chen Zhe and Noppon Saengkham plays Adam Duffy in the other matches.
4pm Session
Stuart Bingham is among the headline names on show in this session. He faces Chen Zifan while Joe Perry takes on Hamza Akbar of Pakistan. The other matches see Graeme Dott facing Fang Xiongman, Jack Lisowski taking on Joe Swail, Matthew Stevens meeting Elliot Slessor, Daniel Wells up against Billy Joe Castle and Jimmy Robertson facing Jak Jones.
7pm Session
The recent winner in Hong Kong, Neil Robertson, takes on the former Shootout champion Robin Hull while Ricky Walden faces Jimmy White. Xiao Guodong meets Sean O’Sullivan, David Grace plays Josh Boileau with Alfie Burden taking on Jamie Barrett. The other match sees Ben Woollaston going up against Sam Craigie.
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Betting
There are a lot of matches on Tuesday but rather than plough into them I am mindful that apart from those involved in the World Cup or in Hong Kong a lot of these players haven’t played competitively for nearly two months. With that in mind I’m going with just two bets.
Noppon Saengkham has already done a number on Adam Duffy this season and having played in the recent World Cup he should be sharper than his opponent in this match. They met in the qualifying for the Riga Masters which Saengkham won 4-1 and a similar result would be no surprise here. The Thai could even win it more comfortably if Duffy needs a couple of frames to get going.
Ricky Walden played two matches earlier in the season and never won a frame in them so he may not be in the most confident frame of mind heading into his match with Jimmy White. White is going through a bit of a revival in his career. He made the last 16 in Riga last month and had a couple of decent events last season too. The pressure is all on Walden in this one which makes me think White is value at odds against.
Tips
Back N.Saengkham (-1.5 frames) to beat A.Duffy for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Skybet
Back him here:
Back J.White to beat R.Walden for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with Titanbet
Back him here:
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