The second day of action at the UK Championship at the Barbican Centre in York takes place over three sessions on Wednesday with a host of huge names looking to make it through and into the televised stages of the event.
The tournament is still reeling from the seismic shock which saw Ding Junhui dumped out from 5-1 up on the opening day. That is likely to further focus the minds of the big names for the rest of the week. Among the players in action on Wednesday are Anthony McGill, Shaun Murphy, Judd Trump and Mark Selby.
Morning Session
The two streamed matches in the first session of the day will see Luca Brecel taking on Soheil Vahedi on one of the main tables with Anthony McGill up against Ashley Hugill on the other one. They are available on most of the bookmaker websites.
On the outside tables Ricky Walden will play Duane Jones while Jamie Jones takes on Craig Steadman. There is an interesting match between Sam Baird and Aditya Mehta while Mark Davis faces a tricky tie again Xu Si of China. The other two matches see Zhou Yuelong playing Peter Lines and Hossein Vafaei coming up against James Wattana.
Afternoon Session
There are two star names on show on the TV tables in this session of play. The Champion of Champions winner Shaun Murphy will face Hamza Akbar on one of them with Judd Trump taking on Matthew Bolton on the other.
As ever this week the outside tables are going to be full up. Peter Ebdon meets Allan Taylor on one of them while Anthony Hamilton plays Lu Haotian on another. We have Daniel Wells against Liam Highfield on the outside tables with Jimmy Robertson playing Alex Borg. Robbie Williams faces Martin O’Donnell and Martin Gould takes on the veteran Joe Swail.
Evening Session
Two more huge names get their tournaments going on the main tables in this session. Mark Selby begins his title defence when he goes up against the Egyptian player Basem Eltahhan. Mark Allen is on the other streamed table against Lukas Kleckers.
Some good players are on the outside table. Jack Lisowski plays Wang Yuchen while Joe Perry goes up against Billy Joe Castle. Scott Donaldson meets John Astley in another match. Oliver Lines and Mei Xiwen collide on another of the outside table matches with the two remaining games seeing Michael White facing Ross Muir and Matt Selt going up against Ian Burns.
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Betting
I’m going to go with three bets for this set of matches. Going into the afternoon we have Lu Haotian who should be on a real high after his semi-final run in the Northern Ireland Trophy last week. He takes on an Anthony Hamilton who he has already beaten 5-0 this season. It should be said that Hamilton was injured then and he isn’t now but he didn’t hit the ball well in the Champion of Champions and went out in the first round last week. Hamilton should be more competitive than their last meeting but I still fancy he’ll lose.
Scott Donaldson had a good time of it last season but it has been a bit of a nightmare this time around. He hasn’t won a single match all campaign and his confidence has to be at rock bottom. John Astley has been winning many more matches and has been competitive even when he has been being beaten recently so he should be feeling a lot better about his game. A positive mood is a big thing in this game so I’m with Astley to continue the miserable season of Donaldson.
Michael White has been having a good season and I see no reason why that won’t continue when he takes on a Ross Muir who he already had two big wins over in his career. Muir can be competitive but rarely does he win bursts of frames in one visit which White can do. White has won a tournament this year and been a quarter finalist in the English Open and Champion of Champions recently. I think he’ll have a fair bit in hand when he comes through here.
Tips
WON – Back L.Haotian to beat A.Hamilton for a 4/10 stake at 2.50 with Coral
Back him here:
Back J.Astley to beat S.Donaldson for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Ladbrokes
Back him here:
Back M.White (-2.5 frames) to beat R.Muir for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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