The second day of action at the Riga Masters sees the last 32 and the last 16 of the competition taking place on what is a busy day in the Latvian capital, one which by the end of it we will know the identity of the quarter finalists.
The last 32 takes place in the morning and afternoon sessions while the last 16 fills up the evening offering out in Latvia. We will preview the last 32 here but sadly time restrictions will deny us the chance of covering the last 16.
Morning Session
Although a host of big names didn’t make it to the tournament because of flight issues, one man who did is Mark Selby and he goes up against Graeme Dott in the headline match of the first session of the day. There are two other juicy matches in this session. Yan Bingtao takes on Alan McManus while Sam Craigie meets Matthew Selt. Both are good games. Jak Jones plays Michael Holt and Mark King meets Zhou Yuelong in the other two matches first up.
The headline match in the second set of games is the one featuring Jack Lisowski, the beaten finalist of 12 months ago, and Daniel Wells. There is a Chinese element to this session too. Yuan Sijun takes on Li Hang in one of the matches while Christopher Keogan faces Xiao Guodong in another of them. Chen Zifan is also in action in the session. He plays Ben Woollaston. Tom Ford plays Gary Wilson in the other match.
Afternoon Session
Mark Williams is the main star in the afternoon session and he plays another Chinese player in Luo Honghap. Mei Xiwen is another Chinese player on show when he takes on Lukas Kleckers while Joe Perry and Stuart Carrington should battle out a good match if they both play to their best form.
Mark Joyce meets Liam Highfield with the other two matches in the session seeing Ian Preece meeting the Shootout champion Thepchaiya Un-Nooh while Lu Haotian’s reward for beating Luca Brecel in the first round is a clash with Kurt Maflin.
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Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the last 32. Li Hang in the first of them against his Chinese compatriot Yuan Sijun. Sijun is a real star in the making but Hang doesn’t get the credit he deserves for where he has got to in the game. He is established in the top 32 and the next step for him is to be making major finals and things like that. He is certainly good enough for that and goes into this second round game off the back of five 50+ breaks in the previous round. That is good scoring whoever you are let alone someone as unheralded as Hang. Sijun had a goof win over Walden to kick his tournament into gear but at odds against I think Hang can take him out.
Another player who played well in that first round was Liam Highfield. He scored very impressively and generally when he does that he wins snooker matches so I think he is worth taking at even money against Mark Joyce. Joyce is what I call a one-paced player who will go well now and again but often when he comes up against something good he gets found out. Highfield has all the talent needed to really succeed in the game and at some point that will come out in his results. I think he can win here and take another step towards it happening this weekend.
Tips
WON – Back L.Hang to beat Y.Sijun for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Coral
Back him here:
Back L.Highfield to beat M.Joyce for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Bet365
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