The first ranking event of the snooker season gets underway in Latvia on Friday with the entire first round of the Riga Masters taking place on an incredibly busy start to the event in the capital city.
The whole field is in action at some point on Friday with Mark Williams playing his first match as world champion as well as a host of other great names on the TV coverage and the other streamed table.
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Morning Session
There are two sets of matches in the morning session with the opening one seeing the two held over matches being played. Graeme Dott faces Maris Volajs in one of them while Rodion Judin meets Jimmy White in the other. In the first round matches Jamie Jones faces Rod Lawler, Chris Wakelin takes on Sam Craigie in one of the pick of the morning games while Robbie Williams takes on Lukas Kleckers. Xu Si faces Mark King and Mei Xiwen plays Joe Swail.
In the second round of morning games Shaun Murphy is the headline attraction. He faces David Lilley on one of the streamed tables while Nigel Bond meets Zhao Xintong on the other. Elsewhere Stuart Carrington plays Fergal O’Brien, Scott Donaldson meets Robin Hull, Zhou Yuelong plays Craig Steadman and Kurt Maflin goes up against Liang Wenbo in a tasty looking tussle.
Afternoon Session
Neil Robertson is the main man in the afternoon and he’s first up on the main table when he takes on Li Yuan. Michael White plays Dave Gilbert on the other main table with Joe Perry up against Robert Milkins on one of the outside tables. Rory McLeod faces Zhang Yong on an outside table while Stephen Maguire meets Gerard Greene. Lee Walker plays Joe O’Connor in the remaining match.
The Masters champion Mark Allen is one of the big names on show in the second half of the afternoon. He takes on Peter Lines while Barry Hawkins is also in action when he plays Li Hang. On the outside tables Niu Zhuang plays Simon Bedford while Liam Highfield meets Michael Holt. Tian Pengfei takes on the winner of the Graeme Dott match from the morning while Ashley Carty goes up against Anthony McGill.
Evening Session
The two big matches of the first set of matches in the evening session sees Ali Carter taking on the defending champion Ryan Day and Xiao Guodong up against Marco Fu. They will both be on the main tables with Ricky Walden up against either Judin or White on an outside table. Kyren Wilson is also on show in the evening when he plays Luke Simmonds.
Luca Brecel will be all the rage in the second half of the evening when he takes on Mark Davis but really the final part of the day will be all about Mark Williams as he faces Ben Woollaston in his first match as the champion of the world. Oliver Lines meets Alfie Burden and Jack Lisowski faces Ian Burns in the other two matches.
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Betting
I like four bets over the course of the day. The first one is on Rod Lawler to beat Jamie Jones. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t take this bet but Jamie Jones’ cue hasn’t arrived in Riga with him and he is going to try to use one of the local players’ cue which won’t be easy. That gives Lawler a real edge for me and while it might not be pretty he becomes a pretty big price at 9/4.
I have a feeling Michael White is going to have a big season and he can start that with a morale boosting win over Dave Gilbert in the afternoon session. Gilbert is solid enough but his very best form is far too infrequent for my liking. White showed good form in qualifying for this tournament and has the better of the record against Gilbert. He won a tournament with a similar format to this one last season. He looks a good bet to me.
If you followed Mark Williams’ twitter feed over the last couple of months you will know he has certainly enjoyed his world title and quite rightly so. That might mean he is vulnerable early in this campaign though especially against a player as good as Ben Woollaston who is no stranger to beating big names over the best of seven frames. Williams is rightly the favourite but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he struggles to get up for this so the Leicester man is the one for me in this match.
Finally I like Alfie Burden to beat Oliver Lines. Lines has gone backwards in his career in my eyes whereas Burden is getting through some early rounds at the very least. He’ll always have a run a season and often when he needs it but he often runs into some difficult draws. This is not one on current form so I’ll take the Londoner to take advantage here and come through nicely.
Tips
Back R.Lawler to beat J.Jones for a 3/10 stake at 3.25 with Ladbrokes
Back him here:
WON – Back M.White to beat D.Gilbert for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
Back him here:
Back B.Woollaston to beat M.Williams for a 3/10 stake at 3.60 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back A.Burden to beat O.Lines for a 4/10 stake at 1.89 with 888sport
Back him here:
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