The qualifying competition for the European Masters comes to a close on Saturday with those yet to attempt to book their spot in the main draw doing so over what is another pretty busy day inside the Guild Hall in Preston.
We have got some big names in action across the four sessions of play on Saturday with some real stars on the show tables so there is a lot for us to sit back and stick on the tablets and laptops and enjoy.
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Morning Session
One of the form men of the moment is on one of the main tables in the morning session as Jack Lisowski goes up against the Thai veteran James Wattana. Liang Wenbo will be on the other one when he looks to make it through against Li Yuan. On the outside tables two seasoned campaigners meet when Andy Hicks faces Fergal O’Brien while Mark Davis meets Sam Baird. Yuan Sijun goes up against Gerard Greene while Elliot Slessor faces Ben Woollaston. The other two matches in the session sees Matthew Stevens playing Zhao Xintong and Mark King meeting Ian Burns.
Early Afternoon Session
Stuart Bingham is given the honour of playing on one of the streamed tables first up in the afternoon. He has a tricky encounter with Jamie Jones to negotiate while Barry Hawkins will go up against Sanderson Lam on the other main table. Chris Wakelin will look to continue his form on the outside tables. He plays Joe O’Connor while Rory McLeod takes on Lukas Kleckers. Ricky Walden will be eager to make it through when he goes up against Hammad Miah as will Craig Steadman when he meets Adam Stefanow. Jamie Clarke plays Stuart Carrington in the other match.
Late Afternoon Session
Masters champion Mark Allen is the star attraction in this session. He faces the amateur David Lilley on one of the streamed tables while Ali Carter will meet Xu Si on the other one. The outside tables will be packed once again with Martin Gould facing Ross Muir on one of them and Lee Walker up against Fan Zhengyi on another. Ashley Hugill meets Kishan Hirani on an outside table and Graeme Dott faces Jak Jones. The other match sees Simon Lichtenberg meeting Adam Duffy.
Evening Session
Shaun Murphy is in action in the pick of the matches in the evening session when he goes up against Gary Wilson. The other main table will be occupied by Anthony McGill and Lu Ning with the outside tables seeing Ken Doherty playing Kurt Maflin, James Cahill facing Chris Totten, Peter Ebdon taking on Jordan Brown and Mike Dunn playing Zhou Yuelong. The other match is between Andy Lee and Jimmy Robertson.
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Betting
There are two bets I like over the course of this day. In the morning session I think Zhao Xintong is a good bet to see off Matthew Stevens. Xintong already has wins over Shaun Murphy and Ricky Walden on his CV this season and I expect him to add Stevens to that list. Stevens has had an up and down campaign so far with a 4-0 defeat to Michael Holt and a 5-0 win over Allan Taylor and I’ve a feeling he might find the going tough here against a Xintong who is full of confidence and who is looking to make up for having to go to q-school to continue his career. It is the Chinese star for me.
Moving into the evening session and although he has lost his last three matches I think Kurt Maflin can account for Ken Doherty. Maflin hasn’t actually played all that bad in those defeats he has just run into a couple of good performances. Doherty produced a really poor performance in losing to Sam Baird in the Indian Open qualifiers earlier in the week and I’m not sure he’s going to put up the level of performance Maflin has been running into. This looks like a good chance for the Norwegian to get a win under his belt and I expect him to take it and come through here nicely.
Tips
WON – Back Z.Xintong to beat M.Stevens for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Coral
Back him here:
Back K.Maflin to beat K.Doherty for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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