The opening day of the International Championship takes place in Daqing on Sunday with the remaining matches from qualifying being played out alongside some of the first round matches on what is the busiest day of the competition.
There are some big names in action over the course of the three sessions of play with Neil Robertson, Mark Selby and Ding Junhui among those looking for wins to kick off their week.
Early Session
The action begins with Neil Robertson on the main table. He takes on Gary Wilson which should provide him with a solid enough test. The other main table will contain world champion Mark Selby. He faces Ashley Hugill in a held over match from qualifying.
On the outside tables Tom Ford will take on Ian Preece while Ali Carter meets Andrew Higginson. There is an all-Chinese battle between Yu Delu and the talented Lu Haotian while Zhou Yuelong will face Robin Hull. The other two matches are held over from qualifying. They see Matthew Stevens facing Zhao Xintong and Yan Bingtao playing Wang Yuchen.
Morning Session
The local hero Liang Wenbo is one of the players on a main table in this session. He takes on Adam Duffy while John Higgins will meet Elliot Slessor on the other one.
Ryan Day is one of a few big names who can be found on the outside table in this session. He plays Kurt Maflin while Joe Perry will meet Sam Craigie. Matthew Selt meets Michael Holt with Alan McManus going up against Zhang Yong. David Grace will battle Martin Gould with Luca Brecel meeting Li Yuan in the other match.
Afternoon Session
Judd Trump and Ding Junhui are the occupants on the main table. Trump will face Ian Burns while Ding goes up against Chen Zhe in a held over match in what should be two comfortable wins.
Stephen Maguire is resigned to an outside table in this session. He faces John Astley while the English Open runner up Kyren Wilson meets Tian Pengfei. Martin O’Donnell faces Sanderson Lam while there is an all-Asian clash between Hossein Vafaei and Akani Songsermsawad. There is a juicy tussle between Ricky Walden and Peter Ebdon while Dominic Dale goes up against Ben Woollaston in the remaining game.
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Betting
This is not the easiest opening day card to find bets for so I’m not going to chance anything that isn’t there. This is a long week and the first of a number of successive weeks of snooker coming up so we can afford to pick and choose where we attack. I do have one for the opening day.
That comes in the form of Peter Ebdon who faces a Ricky Walden who looks to have his best days behind him and who certainly isn’t going to find any fluency against Ebdon. We would be pushing it to say Ebdon is in form or at his best but there are lines of form in his results this year that suggests he can still be competitive. Walden is on a bit of a hiding to nothing here and I fancy he’ll come out of it empty handed.
Tips
Back P.Ebdon to beat R.Walden for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Betfair
Back him here:
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