The second day of qualifying for the Shanghai Masters takes place on Thursday when another batch of matches take place in Wigan with those in action looking to book their place on the plane to the Chinese city by winning their match.
As with Wednesday we have three sessions of games over the course of Thursday with those in action competing over the best of nine frames to try and book their spot in the final stages of the tournament.
Morning Session
Li Hang is one of a number of Chinese players on show on the opening day. He takes on Michael Georgiou in this morning session. Oliver Lines goes up against Ian Preece, Thepchaiya Un-Nooh meets Sanderson Lam while Tian Pengfei faces John Astley. Mark Joyce meets Anda Zhang in one of the matches of the session while Hossein Vafaei takes on Elliot Slessor. The other match is between Dominic Dale and Leo Fernandez.
Afternoon Session
There are some big names in action in this session not least Shaun Murphy. He takes on Yuan Sijun while Allister Carter meets Sam Craigie. Graeme Dott goes up against Nigel Bond with Ben Woollaston facing Kurt Dunham. Alfie Burden plays Hamza Akbar with Mike Dunn meeting Li Yuan. Anthony Hamilton faces Lu Haotian in an interesting match.
Evening Session
There is no shortage of star quality on show in this session either. Jimmy White will look to qualify for Shanghai when he takes on Jack Lisowski with Kurt Maflin playing Peter Lines. Martin Gould faces Allan Taylor and Robert Milkins goes up against Paul S Davison. There is an all-Asian battle when Marco Fu plays Boonyarit Kaettikun. Paul Hunter Classic champion Michael White meetings Jamie Curtis-Barrett with Gary Wilson and Zhao Xintong completing the line up.
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Betting
There are two bets which get my attention here. The first comes in the afternoon session when Anthony Hamilton just had to be taken on. He has pulled out of his last two matches before they started. I’m not sure of the reason but he has had back troubles in the past and if he is hampered in his swing in any way Lu Haotian can take advantage. Haotian pushed Mark Selby all the way in Belgium last week in what was a really promising performance and if he can repeat that level he could well have enough for a potentially restricted Hamilton.
The other bet I like is Gary Wilson to see off Zhao Xintong. To be fair to Xintong he ran into that monster performance from Selby last week when the world champion banged in four tons in a 4-1 win but that only really showed that if the Chinese player is slightly off his game he leaves himself wide open. Wilson is a very heavy scorer himself but he is tactically more solid so I fancy he’ll keep things at long range and create chances for himself. If he does that and gets them he should feast on a wide open game the China player has.
Tips
WON – Back L.Haotian to beat A.Hamilton for a 3/10 stake at 3.75 with Betfair
Back him here:
WON – Back G.Wilson to beat Z.Xintong for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
Back him here:
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