The opening day of the Riga Masters sees the heldover matches and the first round of the tournament taking place on one of the busiest days of the season out in the Latvian capital on Friday.
We were due to see the likes of Neil Robertson, Kyren Wilson, Mark Selby and Mark Williams in action among others although it remains to be seen just how many we see due to the flight issues I mentioned in my outright preview.
Morning Session
The aforementioned Neil Robertson was due on the main table to open up the tournament with him taking on Robert Milkins but that is obviously in doubt now. Kishan Hirani meets the Estonian amateur Andres Petrov on the other main table. Elsewhere in the arena there are some juicy matches with Ricky Walden going up against Yuan Sijun the pick of them. Lukas Kleckers meets Zhang Anda in another of them and Yan Bingtao faces Rod Lawler.
There is another session of matches in the morning with Duane Jones facing the Latvian player Rodion Judin on the main table. Mark Selby is also in action on a main table too. He meets Harvey Chandler while the other two matches taking place elsewhere sees Mike Dunn facing Li Hang and Ali Carter going up against Jak Jones for a place in the second round later in the weekend.
Afternoon Session
There are three sessions of play in the afternoon as well with Mark King probably the biggest name in the first of them. He takes on Allan Taylor while elsewhere Jamie O’Neill plays Sam Craigie, Matt Selt goes up against Lu Ning in what looks like a decent battle and Michael Holt Alexander Ursenbacher also collide away from the spotlight.
Later in the session Mark Williams gets his campaign up and running when he takes on Jordan Brown who has already played in the World Cup this term so should be match sharp. Xiao Guodong was due to face Kyren Wilson but that might not be going ahead now. Zhou Yuelong takes on Louis Heathcote in another match.
The final session of the afternoon sees Joe Perry taking on Anthony Hamilton, while Lee Walker goes up against Graeme Dott. Bradon Sargeant meets Stuart Carrington and Scott Donaldson plays Mark Joyce. The match of the session sees Luca Brecel going up against Lu Haotian while elsewhere Adam Stefanow plays Liam Highfield, Craig Steadman meets Daniels Wells and Oliver Lines takes on Thepchaiya Un-Nooh.
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Later Session
There are three sets of matches in the evening session as well with the winner of the match between Neil Robertson and Robert Milkins, should it go ahead, taking on Ben Woollaston while Mark Selby or Harvey Chandler takes on Hossein Vafaei. The other match first up sees Joe O’Connor taking on Kurt Maflin.
Four matches follow that with Jack Lisowski the biggest name among them. He awaits the winner of Duane Jones and Rodion Judin while Chen Zifan will meet the winner of Kishan Hirani and Andres Petrov. Kacper Filipiak meets Tom Ford and Jackson Page plays Gary Wilson. In the last session Mark Williams or Jordan Brown will meet James Cahill, Ian Preece faces Gerard Greene and David Grace meets Luo Honghap.
Betting
There is just the one bet for me on Friday and it comes in the form one of the earlier matches as Matt Selt takes on Lu Ning, a match I think the Indian Open champion can come through in. It was over this distance that Selt won that Indian Open title so he should be pretty comfortable in this format and quite often that can be a big thing.
Selt will be looking to kick on this season and while Ning is a competent player he is someone who I think will be better over the course of a longer format. I’m a little surprised there are bookmakers out there who have this as a pick ‘em match. I appreciate Ning had a good win in qualifying but Selt is the better player for me and I expect him to showcase that here.
Tips
WON – Back M.Selt to beat L.Ning for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betway
Back him here:
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