We are down to the busiest day of the English Open for the players remaining in the tournament on Thursday as 32 becomes eight with two rounds of matches over the course of a frantic few hours in Crawley.
Many of the bigger names have made it through to the last 32 of the opening Home Nations event of the season, with their eye on the title and keeping their hopes of the £1m bonus alive. The last 32 is played out in the morning and the afternoon with the last 16 in the evening. Time restrictions will deny us a chance of previewing that but we’ll get stuck into the last 32.
Morning Session
Seven matches make up the morning session of action with Mark Selby the man to grace the TV table first up. He goes up against the Indian Open champion Matthew Selt in what should be a good match. The stream table has the former finalist Kyren Wilson looking to progress to the last 16. He goes up against Tom Ford in what should be another match well worth watching for those who are able to.
Elsewhere the outside tables are going to be full and on one of them there will be an all-Chinese battle between the impressive youngster Si Jiahui and Zhou Yuelong while another Chinese player, Tian Pengfei, meets Dominic Dale. Dave Gilbert and Kurt Maflin are both enjoying strong campaigns and one of them will make the last 16 as they face off against each other while Michael Holt’s reward for beating Mark Williams is a clash with Ricky Walden. The pick of the matches on the outskirts of the arena though should be the one between Xiao Guodong and Jack Lisowski.
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Afternoon Session
Once again Ronnie O’Sullivan will be on the TV table in the first of two matches on there in the afternoon session. After surviving two deciding frames this week he now takes on the dangerous Hossein Vafaei while over on the streamed table Mark Allen faces Louis Heathcote. The outside tables are full once again for this session with Shaun Murphy meeting Fan Zhengyi on one of them and Graeme Dott meeting Thepchaiya Un-Nooh on another of them. Mei Xiwen and Elliot Slessor meet for a place in the last 16 in a big match for the pair of them while Barry Hawkins takes on Fergal O’Brien. The other match sees Joe Perry meeting Gary Wilson.
Two matches are saved for second games on the main tables on Thursday afternoon. At the time of writing the preview I’m not sure which match is on which table but we will get to see Neil Robertson up against the young talent of Zhao Xintong while the world champion Judd Trump takes on Lee Walker in a serious clash of styles in the other match.
Betting
I’ll go with just the one bet in this last 32. I’ve had a decent week so far with five winners from six bets and all four outrights through to this stage of the competition so there is no need to push the boat out even though there are a couple of bets that do tempt me. Alas not quite enough so I’ll stick with Thepchaiya Un-Nooh to beat Graeme Dott in the afternoon session.
I’ve already taken Dott on once this week and to be fair to the Scot he has come through quite nicely but he has only scored three breaks of 50 or more in his two matches compared to seven that Un-Nooh has made. The Thai has already seen off two very tough challenges in Stephen Maguire and Joe O’Connor and came through the latter in a deciding frame to show that he can hold his nerve which is a pretty big thing. Un-Nooh doesn’t have the best record against Dott but he has conditions and a format to get the better of him here, and more importantly the scoring form too.
Tips
WON – Back T.Un-Nooh to beat G.Dott for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back him here:
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