The Masters is reeling from the shock defeat of Ronnie O’Sullivan on Thursday afternoon and two men looking to take advantage of the tournament opening right up are Kyren Wilson and Mark Williams and they meet in the evening session at Alexandra Palace on Thursday.
A place in the semi-final and a guaranteed pot of £50,000 is the reward for the winner when the two men who caused first round upsets do battle in the second quarter final of the tournament.
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Kyren Wilson
One man in his first Masters quarter final is Kyren Wilson and he fully deserves to be there having outplayed Barry Hawkins in the opening round. Hawkins really laid the gauntlet down with a century in the first frame and that spurred Wilson into life. He made two centuries a couple of other authoritative breaks in a really good performance.
We should not be surprised to see him play that well as he has been playing good snooker all season. The surprise came in the fact that he played so well here because although he has won a couple of tournaments in his career he is still relatively new to the big stage, the big crowds and the one table situations.
Mark Williams
Another man who played very well in the first round was Mark Williams. He powered into a 2-0 lead over Mark Selby in the first round with a century and another big break and although the world champion surged into a 5-3 lead the way Williams performed under pressure to come through and win 6-5 bodes very well.
Usually you would say winning a tournament does wonders for confidence and relaxes a player for future events knowing that there is a trophy in the pocket already but Williams is always pretty relaxed and never seems to worry about things like that but I suspect winning that tournament has given him the motivation to keep practicing and that could make him dangerous.
Head to Head
These two have met five times in the past and Mark Williams holds a 3-2 career lead although Kyren Wilson will know that the Welshman’s wins have all come in either the Championship League or the Six Red event. Their two main event meetings have both gone the way of Kyren Wilson including their most recent battle which the Englishman won 5-1 in the World Open quarter final earlier in the season.
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Betting
The stage is set for a really close quarter final and I think that is what we are going to get. I think we might see both men tighten up a little given that the main man has disappeared from the field and that in turn should see this quarter final remain close.
Their first meeting went to a deciding frame when Wilson beat Williams 5-4 in the Northern Ireland Open quarter final in 2016 and given how well they were both scoring in the first round I would not be at all surprised if we need a final frame to separate them here too. Both have decent safety games and both can score so I like over 9.5 frames in what should be a close match between two evenly matched men.
Tips
Back Over 9.5 frames for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Paddy Power
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