Two Englishmen who don’t have the best record in The Masters meet at Alexandra Palace on Monday night with one of them guaranteed to improve their modest career history in the tournament.
Stuart Bingham had never won a match in six attempts heading into the event last year but he made the semi-final and he’ll be looking to build on that. Joe Perry has only ever won one match in the tournament too.
Stuart Bingham
Although Bingham’s record in this tournament is pretty modest by his high standards we shouldn’t forget his rise to the very elite in the game was relatively recent. Usually you would say with such a poor record that a player doesn’t like the event or the venue but with every match in this so tough that might not be the case.
One positive for Bingham is the form he has shown this season. Ironically he had a terrible year overall last season but produced his best result in this tournament but this year he has made the final of the China Championship and three other major semi-finals so he looks back to the form which he displayed in winning the world title.
Joe Perry
The season began quite well for Joe Perry but it has nosedived in recent times. He made the final of the World Open back at the beginning of the campaign but since then it has been a tale of woe and struggle and he will hope that this event comes at the right time for him where he can let his cue arm go and find some form.
This will be Joe Perry’s ninth appearance in this tournament and to only have won one match – that against a Ding Junhui who also struggles here – is clearly not good. He has never come here in the top eight in the game though so he will always have been an outsider in his matches but whichever way you look at it that isn’t a positive record.
Head to Head
These two have met 13 times in their career with Perry leading the head to head 8-5. Bingham halted a run of two Perry wins when he won the semi-final of the World Grand Prix between the two last year. This is their first meeting at The Masters.
Betting
Clearly neither of them have a great record here but one of them will better that here. If Perry was in form then I would wager this would be a close match but it has been far too long since he has shown anything of note and that makes me think Stuart Bingham will be fine here.
Only one of Perry’s defeats in this tournament have been in a deciding frame. When he has been beaten he has generally been well beaten and so I’ll side with Bingham to win this no worse than 6-4.
Tips
Back S.Bingham (-1.5 frames) to beat J.Perry for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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