The first round of the World Championship qualifying competition continues on Friday when another batch of matches get underway involving players with the dream of making it all the way to the Crucible.
We’ve already seen some big shocks in the opening two days of competition. The pressure getting to some big names and the way this competition always plays out I doubt we’re finished there.
Thursday Recap
It wasn’t a good day for Ricky Walden on Thursday. He managed to surrender a 5-0 lead to be knocked out 10-7 by Hammad Miah. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh was another established name to bite the dust.
It wasn’t a great day betting wise with both the bets we have involvement in on Thursday losing so we’ll be aiming to do much better heading into Friday.
Morning Session
The two TV tables will be getting plenty of attention in this session as Jack Lisowski takes on Jimmy White on one of them and Chinese star Yan Bingtao faces rising star Sam Craigie in what should be an entertaining match on the other.
Elsewhere in this session we have Jamie Cope playing Eden Sharav, Peter Ebdon facing Michael Wild, Mark Davis going up against Mitchell Mann, Scott Donaldson against Wang Yuchen, Robert Milkins meeting the Swiss amateur Alexander Ursenbacher, Robbie Williams playing James Cahill, Yu Delu meeting Itaro Santos, John Astley against Igor Figueiredo and Martin Gould playing James Wattana in a match surprisingly snubbed for the streamed table.
Afternoon Session
Plenty more matches kick off in the afternoon with them concluding on Saturday afternoon. On the main tables we will see Graeme Dott playing Allan Taylor and Alan McManus going up against the Australian player Kurt Dunham.
The other matches in the session see Dechawat Poomjaeng playing Chen Zhe in an all-Asian battle, Tian Pengfei meeting Zhang Yong in a Chinese tussle, Fergal O’Brien meeting Gerard Greene in a clash between southern and northern Ireland. Joe Swail meets Sanderson Lam, Rory McLeod plays Darryl Hill, Rod Lawler meets Xi Si while Jimmy Robertson faces Cao Yupeng and Oliver lines plays Duane Jones.
Betting
I like two bets on Friday with one coming in each session. It isn’t hard to go against Jamie Cope right now. He’s only won four matches since the Riga Open in June which is clearly not good. He goes up against Eden Sharav who I believe to be better than his results suggest. Sharav rarely goes too far in competitions but he does have a couple of wins over Oliver Lines to his name as well as a win over Jamie Jones and one against Sam Baird this season so he can clearly play. Cope is in a rut and Sharav is a good price to keep him there.
In the afternoon session Dechawat Poomjaeng has to be taken on. I like Poomjaeng. He’s a character but he has gone too far with the character and too little with the solid snooker. Poomjaeng has won four matches all season with the last of those in Shanghai Masters qualifying way back in August. He takes on Chen Zhe on Friday and Saturday and while the Chinese player isn’t pulling up any trees he might not need to here. You have to go back to November for Zhe’s last win but he’s taken Michael White the distance since then and either side of that pushed Ali Carter and Mark Allen close. At odds against Chen Zhe looks fair value to me.
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World Championship Snooker – Tips
Back E.Sharav to beat J.Cope for a 4/10 stake at 2.05 with Bwin
Back him here:
Back C.Zhe to beat D.Poomjaeng for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with BetVictor
Bet here:
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