The first round of the Riga Masters will be played out on one lengthy opening day inside the Arena Riga on Friday and by the end of the day we will know the 32 men who will battle it out over the weekend for the title and the £50,000 first prize.
Everyone who made it through the qualifying campaign will be in action on Friday. Some players who had their qualifying game held over to the venue will feature twice on the day. There are some good matches to enjoy live on Eurosport and some that don’t appeal as much.
Big Matches
There are plenty of matches on Eurosport on Friday with Jamie Jones against Sam Craigie appealing as a battle of talented relatively young players. Matthew Stevens meets Jack Lisowski in what should be a really good watch. Michael White against Sam Baird should be good too while Mark Williams against Peter Ebdon could be the match of the day on the TV table.
Best of the Rest
The pick of the first round matches sees Barry Hawkins taking on Ryan Day but Dave Gilbert against Joe Perry is another decent match for so early in the tournament. Ben Woollaston against Kyren Wilson and Stuart Bingham taking on Mark Davis are both matches which deserve a bigger profile than they have been given but that is a sign of how strong the draw is here.
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Betting
I’m going with two bets on the opening day of the tournament. Jack Lisowski took care of Mark Allen in qualifying for this tournament which should have given him a real boost ahead of the campaign. Matthew Stevens did well to make it through given what happened to his cue but even if both were at their best or the best we’ve seen them in recent seasons I would like Lisowski here. When you add in the win over Allen I definitely like the Englishman in this one.
Elliott Slessor has played two matches this season and hasn’t lost a frame yet and one of those wins was a 5-0 win over Jamie Jones in the China Championship so he must be playing some decent stuff and he looks excellent value to see off the young Swiss player Alexander Ursenbacher. Ursenbacher is definitely one for the future but he is still new to the tour again and given the confidence Slessor must have from those wins earlier in the month he has to be the call at odds against.
Tips
WON – Back J.Lisowski to beat M.Stevens for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Ladbrokes
Back him here:
Back E.Slessor to beat A.Ursenbacher for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back him here:
