The second day of action in the World Open qualifying competition takes place at the Guild Hall in Preston on Saturday with another bunch of players looking to book their spots in the main event in China next month.
We’ve already seen a couple of major shocks in this tournament with Shaun Murphy and Stuart Bingham failing to secure their spots in the main draw and that will focus the minds of the big names on show on Saturday including the likes of Ali Carter, Luca Brecel and Kyren Wilson.
Morning Session
We have five matches on show in the morning session on Saturday with two of them on the live streaming tables. Ali Carter is on one of them when he takes on Basem Eltahhan of Egypt while Anthony McGill will face Lee Walker on the other one. Elsewhere Rory McLeod faces Thor Chuan Leong while Daniel Wells meets Andy Lee. The last game actually looks like the best of them all when Mark Davis plays Sam Baird.
Afternoon Session
Graeme Dott is the big name on show in the afternoon session. He faces the extremely talented Zhao Xintong in the match of the day while on the other streamed table Dave Gilbert goes up against Niu Zhuang. The outside tables will see three matches on them. Matthew Selt meets Joe O’Connor while Fergal O’Brien faces Robin Hull and the last match has Scott Donaldson going up against Sanderson Lam.
Evening Session
Luca Brecel and Kyren Wilson are the main men on show in the evening session and they will be looking to book their places at the Chinese event. Brecel takes on Ian Burns while Wilson battles with Nigel Bond. Some good matches will take place on the outside tables. Tom Ford meets Dechawat Poomjaeng while Gary Wilson takes on Jimmy White. Stuart Carrington plays Duane Jones in the other game.
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Betting
I like just the one bet over the course of the day and it comes in the morning session when Mark Davis takes on Sam Baird. Baird did well to regain his tour card at Q-School but he never made much use of it in Riga Masters qualifying when he went down 4-0 to Ben Woollaston and I suspect he might struggle here too.
Mark Davis had an excellent win in qualifying for that tournament when he took care of Andrew Higginson with a century and a couple of 50 breaks. If he can produce that form in this match then I’m expecting him to have too much for a Baird who wasn’t fantastic at Q-School and who isn’t as good as Davis anyway.
Tips
WON – Back M.Davis (-1.5 frames) to beat S.Baird for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with LeoVegas
Back him here:
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