The opening day of the Shanghai Masters is an extremely busy one with three sessions of play and some of the leading names in the game in action as the held over matches get played and the first round begins out in China.
There is no doubt about which is the match of the first day. That is the one between Yan Bingtao and Mark Allen but with Mark Selby, John Higgins, Ryan Day and Mark Williams all in action there is plenty for us to enjoy either on TV or on the streams.
Early Morning Session
The big match will be on one of the TV tables when Bingtao takes on Mark Allen. Ryan Day meets Yu Delu on the other of the watchable tables. Tom Ford plays Jimmy Robertson in a first round match with Lee Walker meeting Kurt Maflin in another. The other first round tie is Jack Lisowski taking on Chris Totten. There are also three held over matches in this session. Billy Joe Castle plays Zhang Jiankang, Li Zhen plays Chen Feilong and Soheil Vahedi goes up against Ma Chunmao.
Morning Session
John Higgins begins his quest for the title in this session. He goes up against Alexander Ursenbacher on one of the TV tables with the match between Liang Wenbo and Rod Lawler on the other. Both of those are held over matches. The outside tables all contain first round matches with Fergal O’Brien facing Mitchell Mann, Mark King plays Jamie Jones, Michael Georgiou goes up against Ben Woollaston and Dave Gilbert plays Mark Joyce. Young Chinese star Zhou Yuelong faces Sanderson Lam and Wang Yuchen goes up against Mark Williams.
Afternoon Session
The rest held over matches takes place in this session and one is on the TV table as it involves Mark Selby. He takes on Ian Burns with the other matches seeing Rory McLeod facing the winner of the Billy Joe Castle match from the morning. Stuart Carrington awaits the winner of Zhen/Feilong and Sam Baird will face either Vahedi or Chunmao. There are also first round matches when Michael White and Mark Davis meets on the other TV table while Graeme Dott plays Xiao Guodong and Robert Milkins meets Lu Haotian on the outside tables.
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Betting
There are two bets for me to get the week underway and both are on the TV tables. In the morning session I’m going to ride Alexander Ursenbacher and his handicap. He is receiving 2.5 frames against John Higgins which on the face of it you might think is not enough given that this is their third meeting this season and the Swiss star hasn’t won a frame against him yet but Higgins looked absolutely shattered at the end of his Champion of Champions group on Thursday and now he’s had to hot foot it to China for this match. Since their two previous meetings Ursenbacher has made his first ranking semi-final and he can build on that with his first three frames against Higgins.
In the afternoon session I’m with Mark Davis. He has played Michael White nine times in the past and quite amazingly he has won on all nine occasions. White has only won 12 of the 50 frames they have played too so he rarely gets close to the Englishman which is a crazy statistic. When you factor in White has been globetrotting over the last few days Davis looks to have everything going for him to extend that record. At odds against I’ll take Davis to continue this amazing dominance to his advantage.
Tips
Back A.Ursenbacher (+2.5 frames) to beat J.Higgins for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
Back him here:
Back M.Davis to beat M.White for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Bwin
Back him here:
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