The second day of action at the World Championship sees two more matches going on their way and four others concluding inside the Crucible Theatre on another busy day of snooker on the iconic Yorkshire stage.
Neil Robertson took centre stage on the opening day and on Sunday it is the chance for two former winners to get their quest for another world title underway when John Higgins and Shaun Murphy take to the green baize.
Saturday Recap
Mark Williams became the first man into the second round of the tournament when he saw off Martin Gould 10-7. Elsewhere we saw some good snooker, not least from Neil Robertson who banged in two tons and five other 50 breaks as he took a 9-0 lead over Michael Georgiou. Elsewhere Ding Junhui seized the early control of his match with Anthony McGill, leading 6-3 overnight while Luca Brecel and Stephen Maguire are locked in battles. The former leads Gary Wilson 5-4 and the latter trails Tian Pengfei by the same score.
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In Play Betting
Given that very few matches start and finish on the same day in this tournament, in play betting is going to be a real feature of it for me as it goes along, but not on Sunday as I’ve got three bets in good shape in the four matches due to finish on Sunday and the other one isn’t really throwing up a great betting option so I’m happy to let my three bets carry over from Saturday’s action I think.
John Higgins vs Mark Davis (Sunday 10am & Monday 2.30pm)
The first of the two matches to get going on Sunday sees the beaten finalist of the last two years in John Higgins, taking on the oldest qualifier for the event in Mark Davis in a match which has plenty of intrigue attached to it.
Higgins has had one of the worst seasons of his career to date but that isn’t always a bad thing coming in here as at least he will be mentally fresh. He has to overcome a terrible head-to-head record with Davis though, who staggeringly leads him 8-2 in what you would call genuine important matches. I fancy Higgins to win this match but that previous record puts me off a touch. I guess you could say history makes Davis good value but I’m not so sure. Hopefully the first session is competitive and we can assess at half time and get involved in the contest in the second half.
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Shaun Murphy vs Luo Honghao (Sunday 2.30pm & Monday 10am)
The only other match to begin on Sunday sees the former champion Shaun Murphy look to put a horrendous campaign behind him when he goes up against the Chinese qualifier Luo Honghao in a battle of the piano players.
It is hard to remember Murphy having a sustained spell of snooker where his results have been so indifferent but one positive to that has been that he will have had plenty of time to work on his game ahead of this event. I don’t think he’ll win the tournament by any means but I do expect to see him play his best snooker of the year here, and against a debutant who is still fairly new to the scene, I’m thinking that will be enough.
Honghao did well to come through qualifying but Marco Fu has problems of his own right now while Robbie Williams and Tom Ford lost their heads a little and still all three matches were tight. Honghao showed his worth in the English Open but his results either side of that haven’t been convincing. At this stage, I think Honghao just had a good run with the draw in the qualifiers and so I expect Murphy to cover 2.5 frames in this one.
Tips
WON – Back S.Murphy (-2.5 frames) to beat L.Honghao for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
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