The second day of action at the UK Championship inside the Barbican Centre in York sees the first round of the tournament continue with three packed sessions of play, as the first Triple Crown event of the season heads towards the TV stages.
It was a relatively comfortable day on the baize for the big names on Tuesday and there are plenty more star attractions hoping to come through equally as easily across the course of the three sessions on Wednesday.
Morning Session
Marco Fu and Stuart Bingham are the two household names who will be on the streamed tables in the first session of the day. Fu needs a big tournament to kick start his season while Bingham will be looking for a second title in England this term having landed the English Open. Fu faces Hammad Miah while Bingham faces the Thaiphoon, James Wattana.
The outside tables will be full in this session with the European Masters winner Jimmy Robertson going up against Jordan Brown. Li Hang meets Lee Walker in a match which could take a while and Anthony Hamilton against Rod Lawler could be a lengthy contest too. Andrew Higginson faces former world finalist Nigel Bond with Mark Joyce playing Niu Zhuang. The other match sees Liam Highfield playing Robin Hull.
Afternoon Session
Last year’s beaten finalist Shaun Murphy is the main attraction in the second session of the day. He looks to make it into the televised stages when he goes up against Chen Feilong with the other streamed table seeing Ryan Day in action. He plays the lowly ranked Joe O’Connor in a match the Welshman will be widely expected to win.
Once again there will be plenty of action on the outside tables with Joe Perry going up against John Astley, Tom Ford meeting Craig Steadman, Alan McManus facing Alexander Ursenbacher, Sunny Akani playing Eden Sharav, Michael White going up against Joe Swail and finally Graeme Dott playing the talented Oliver Lines.
Evening Session
John Higgins will get his latest UK Championship campaign underway in the evening session when he faces Dechawat Poomjaeng on the main table with The Masters and International Championship winner Mark Allen going up against the Egyptian player Basem Eltahhan on the other table available for streaming.
David Gilbert is one of the bigger names on the outside tables in the evening. He meets Ashley Carty while elsewhere Stuart Carrington plays Paul Davison. Mike Dunn going up against Allan Taylor, Gary Wilson takes on Billy Joe Castle with Martin Gould meeting Harvey Chandler. Most of the interest in the outside tables will come in the Thepchaiya Un-Nooh against Jimmy White contest.
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Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the day with the first one coming in the afternoon where Michael White plays host to Joe Swail. Swail won a couple of matches in the Northern Ireland Open recently but he was on home soil there and probably extremely motivated to do well. That isn’t the case here and over this extended distance I expect White to come through with a bit in hand. To be fair to White he isn’t having the best season of his life to date but there’s a saying about class and form and I’m happy to with that here. White is class and he’ll come good soon. This longer tournament where he can relax a bit and let his arm go should be right up his street. I expect him to come through here.
Stuart Carrington is a solid enough player who is having a fair enough season without pulling up any trees. It generally takes a decent player to beat him though with Judd Trump and Mark Selby the men to knock him out of recent tournaments. He takes on Paul Davison who is not one of those decent players so I’m expecting the Grimsby man to come through with a fair bit in hand here. Carrington is very good in the UK and Europe and these longer format matches tend to bring out his better results. Davison arrives here without a win since the middle of August and in that time he has won just five out of 32 frames. I don’t see him winning more than three in this match.
Tips
Back M.White (-1.5 frames) to beat J.Swail for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Coral
Back him here:
Back S.Carrington (-2.5 frames) to beat P.Davison for a 4/10 stake at 1.95 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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