The third day of action at the World Championship sees two of the biggest names in the sport getting their quest for another title at the Crucible Theatre underway on what has all the makings of another excellent day of action.
Mark Selby and Ronnie O’Sullivan are on the schedule on Monday as the tournament gets set to ramp up a notch, although the day will have plenty to live up to after an epic night of snooker on Sunday.
Sunday Recap
As expected, Neil Robertson completed a pretty convincing victory on Sunday evening when he disposed of Michael Georgiou 10-1 while there was also wins on the day for Ding Junhui, who beat Anthony McGill 10-7, and Gary Wilson and Stephen Maguire, who came through deciding frames against Luca Brecel and Tian Pengfei respectively, although that only tells half the story with Wilson winning the longest frame in Crucible history to win 10-9 and Maguire enjoying a crazy fluke when 7-9 down.
That means that it was a good day for us betting wise as Robertson safely covered his handicap and the total frames in the Maguire and Pengfei match sailed in without too many troubles. It would have been the complete perfect day had there been one more 50 break in the Brecel match but as a famous singer once said, two out of three ain’t bad!
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In Play Betting
There are two matches which got underway on Sunday and will finish on Monday but in terms of a bet for them I’m not sure there is much mileage anywhere. We’re going to collect in the Shaun Murphy against Luo Honghao match anyway as Murphy leads 9-0 and the Chinese youngster isn’t going to win eight on the bounce to deny us. John Higgins leads Mark Davis 6-3 in the other match and given that I expected the Scot to win at the outset there isn’t really anything I like in terms of a bet in the second session so it is off to the Monday games we go.
Mark Selby vs Zhao Xintong (Monday 10am & 7pm)
The three time champion Mark Selby gets his campaign underway on Monday when he begins his match with Chinese youngster Zhao Xintong in the morning session before returning in the evening looking for a place in the second round.
As you would expect, Selby has a good record against his young foe but they played out a fairly close China Championship semi-final earlier in the campaign which should have told Xintong that he can compete with Selby at the very least, if not go on and beat him. There was a lot to like about the Chinese star in qualifying too and you get the impression he could lay down a serious challenge here.
Selby lost in the first round here last year and his form in the UK has been patchy for too long. I’m assuming that Xintong will be approaching this with nothing to lose given that he dropped off the tour not too long ago. You would expect Selby to win but Xintong has the game and if he can get in first in a few frames he can keep Selby honest if not actually get over the line here.
Ronnie O’Sullivan vs James Cahill (Monday 2.30pm & Tuesday 10am)
The second match to begin on Monday is probably the most anticipated of the first round as Ronnie O’Sullivan takes on the first amateur ever to qualify for this tournament in James Cahill. That is a story which will get trotted out a fair bit but we shouldn’t forget Cahill is a professional in all but name and has been for much of the season.
You would expect O’Sullivan’s experience to win the day here. We’ve already seen a couple of debutants get caught in the headlights of the Crucible Theatre this week and there is every chance that Cahill will be the third one but at the same time we shouldn’t forget that he dumped Selby out of the UK Championship so if he is given the chances here he has the game to keep everything honest. All the lines have O’Sullivan to win this around 10-3 or 10-4 and that’s the score range I foresee too so betting on this initially doesn’t seem worthwhile.
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Dave Gilbert vs Joe Perry (Monday 7pm & Tuesday 2.30pm)
The last match off on Monday is the closest one of the lot on paper as the man seeded 16 in Dave Gilbert takes on the player ranked 18 in the world prior to the qualifiers beginning in Joe Perry, a former semi-finalist in this tournament.
This is the fifth trip to this event for Gilbert and thus far he has only won one match in it. This will be the first time he has been seeded but he hasn’t exactly got much of a reward for that. It does however show his improvement over the last couple of seasons. Perry is pretty consistent and almost landed the European Masters title earlier in the season and eased through qualifying and looks primed for a decent tournament so we should be in for a good match here.
The rankings suggest that this will be the closest match of the first round and many of their previous meetings have been tight too. This should be underrated in terms of quality and I wouldn’t be surprised to see a few tons. Over 2.5 tons tempts me but I like the 10/11 on over 16.5 frames more.
Tips
WON – Back Z.Xintong (+3.5 frames) to beat M.Selby for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Boylesports
Back him here:
WON – Back D.Gilbert vs J.Perry – Over 16.5 frames for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back it here:
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