The final round of qualifying for the Riga Masters takes place on Thursday when the last 10 matches of the competition are played out over the course of three sessions. With another qualifying campaign beginning on Friday there is no evening session here.
We’ve seen some shocks and some good performances from some big names this week so we don’t really know what to expect when the 20 remaining men to do battle get their season underway on Thursday.
Morning Session
We were due to have four matches in this session but we are down to three after a walkover. There are still a couple of big names in action in this session though as Barry Hawkins and Joe Perry get up and running for the campaign on the streamed tables. Hawkins goes up against Jamie O’Neill while Perry takes on Fan Zhengyi. The other match in the first session of the day sees Soheil Vahedi going up against the local amateur Andreas Ploner.
Early Afternoon Session
Two more huge names are on show in the middle session on Thursday when the seasons of Stuart Bingham and Kyren Wilson get started. Both men will be competing on the streamed table with Bingham taking on Li Hang in a juicy clash while Wilson meets Fergal O’Brien. The other two matches in the session see Lu Ning going up against Martin O’Donnell while Anthony Hamilton faces Andrew Pagett who returns to the tour here.
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Late Afternoon Session
We round off this qualifying competition with just the three matches, two of which are on the streamed tables. The main one sees Shaun Murphy looking to put a horror campaign behind him when he faces Zhang Anda while the other table will see Mark King going up against Martin Gould. The one match not in front of the cameras has the talented Chinese youngster Zhao Xintong taking on Kacper Filipiak.
Betting
There is only one bet which interests me on Thursday and we have to wait until the final session for it to arrive. It sees Shaun Murphy taking on Zhang Anda and I think the former world champion has to be taken on in this contest for a few reasons, not least because he is coming into this campaign off the back of a terrible season.
That is one reason to oppose ‘The Magician’. He is already under pressure as a result of that and then I read that he’s swapping the cue for the golf clubs to try and qualify for The Open next month so quite how much attention the baize has had in the last six weeks only he will know. Zhang Anda isn’t the best player known to man but he always raises his game against the bigger players and when the spotlight is on so I’m expecting him to play well here. That might be enough to beat a potentially disinterested Murphy.
Tips
WON – Back Z.Anda to beat S.Murphy for a 3/10 stake at 2.88 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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