The second round of the English Open takes place on what is a third bumper day of snooker in Crawley on Wednesday. There are 32 matches in the round and they all feature on a huge three session card in the opening Home Nations event of the year.
The majority of big names made it through the first round of the competition so we are heading towards some huge clashes later in the week but there is so much talent down the rankings we are getting some good ones on Wednesday.
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Morning Session
Neil Robertson is the headline act in the morning session. He faces his stablemate Oliver Lines for a place in the last 32. Liang Wenbo is likely to be the man occupying the other streamed table when he faces Eden Sharav in a match the Chinese star needs to win as he is defending big points having won this tournament two years ago.
As ever in the morning session the outside tables are full. Craig Steadman meets Chris Wakelin on one of them while David Lilley goes up against Alan McManus on another. Elsewhere we have Stuart Carrington facing Luo Honghao, Ryan Day takes on Zhang Yong, Mark Davis meets Adam Stefanow and Zhang Jiankang goes up against Martin Gould.
Afternoon Session
The defending champion Ronnie O’Sullivan continues his title defence when he takes on Allan Taylor on the main table. Ali Carter will go up against Luca Brecel in what looks like being the tie of the round. Amazingly that is only likely to be on the streamed table but at least we will get the opportunity to see it.
The outside tables will be full again in the first set of games in this session. Anthony McGill will be on one of them taking on Kyren Wilson’s successor Sunny Akani while Ian Burns meets one of the form horses of the season in Jack Lisowski. Stuart Bingham is in action in this set of matches. He takes on Hossein Vafaei and the maximum man Thepchaiya Un-Nooh meets Thor Chuan Leong. Lee Walker and Daniel Wells meet in an all-Welsh battle with the other match seeing Robert Milkins going up against Elliot Slessor.
Mark Selby is on the main table in the second round of matches in the afternoon session. He takes on Ben Woollaston while Mark Allen will face Yuan Sijun on the other table in front of the cameras. The outside tables will see Mei Xi Wen meeting Marco Fu while Lukas Kleckers faces Ricky Walden. A third match is on the two main tables with John Higgins and Nigel Bond likely to play on the TV table while Yan Bingtao and Stephen Maguire should make for a tasty tussle on the streamed showing.
Evening Session
The world champion Mark Williams is back on centre stage in the first of the two TV matches in the session. The Welshman takes on Alexander Ursenbacher while Barry Hawkins will meet Sam Craigie on the streamed option. Jimmy White goes up against Matthew Stevens in what will be a popular match on the outside tables while Mark King meets Peter Ebdon. Matt Selt faces Sam Baird on the outside tables and Noppon Saengkham takes on Steven Hallworth. The other two matches away from the cameras sees Jordan Brown playing Jimmy Robertson and Zhou Yuelong meets Xu Si.
Two matches form a second set of games on the main tables to round off the evening for TV purposes. The first of those will see Judd Trump facing Zhao Xintong on the main table with Shaun Murphy going up against David Gilbert in what looks like being a good match on the streamed one.
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Betting
I’ll go with three bets over the course of the day with the first one coming in the form of Marco Fu who I think can pick up a fourth relatively comfortable win over Mei Xi Wen in their careers. I repeatedly mention how Fu’s scoring is a guide to how well he is playing and he scored very well in his first round win over Mark Joyce. Mei wasn’t as impressed and almost came a cropper against James Wattana. The Thai lost out in a deciding frame but Mei will need to up his game dramatically to compete here. He might be able to compete with someone not scoring well but Fu only needs one chance a frame when he’s in the mood. He appears in that mood here so I think he can cover a 1.5 frame start.
Peter Ebdon has been in fine form in recent times and he has already beaten Mark King. Ebdon didn’t used to have a decent record in these best of seven matches but he’s made the Paul Hunter Classic final, beating King along the way, and he looked very good in the first round here. King continues to look a little hit and miss in my eyes and I think back to Lommel and when he got to a tight match he was found wanting albeit against the eventual winner Jimmy Robertson. King had a late finish on Tuesday night in labouring past Ashley Carty. Ebdon looks to be flying and I think he’ll take care of business here.
Sam Baird is another one who was in good touch in the first round. He banged in a couple of centuries in a fine win over Liam Highfield and now he goes up against Matt Selt, who had a good win in the opening round against Zhang Anda but he didn’t really impress in that match and we can’t really take much out of his win in International Championship qualifying last week because Sean O’Sullivan is offering nothing at present. Baird is though so this is probably no worse than a 50:50 match for him which makes Baird the value.
Tips
Back M.Fu (-1.5 frames) to beat M.Xiwen for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
Back P.Ebdon to beat M.King for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
Back them here:
Back S.Baird to beat M.Selt for a 4/10 stake at 2.38 with Betfred
Back him here:
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