It is what is widely becoming known as ‘Moving Day’ in the Northern Ireland Open on Thursday as the field gets whittled down from the 32 who will start the day inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes to the eight men who will progress to the quarter finals on Friday.
There are two rounds of action over the course of Thursday with the last 32 taking place in the morning and afternoon sessions and the last 16 in the evening. Plenty of big names went out on Wednesday in a history of a tournament full of shocks so we should expect nothing different on Thursday. We won’t have the time to get a preview out for the last 16 but we’ll go through the last 32 here.
Morning Session
There is only one set of matches in the morning session and on the main table Ding Junhui will look to make it through to the last 16 when he takes on his Chinese compatriot Yuan Sijun while on the streamed table two current tournament title holders meet when Championship League winner Kyren Wilson meets the Shootout champion Michael Holt. There are two other matches streamed with the bookmakers in this session and they see Stephen Maguire taking on Noppon Saengkham and Yan Bingtao meeting Barry Pinches.
There are four matches on show away from the spotlight of any cameras with the Thai number one Thepchaiya Un-Nooh on one of them. He needs to keep winning to fend off the chasing pack in the race for The Masters and he’ll expect to beat the lowly ranked Allan Taylor. Elsewhere, European Masters runner up Martin Gould meets Andy Hicks while David Grace takes on Michael White who is enjoying a good spell at the minute. The other match sees Ben Woollaston facing Liang Wenbo in a good looking match.
Special Offer
OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH 888SPORT AND BET £10 TO GET £30 IN FREE BETS PLUS A £10 CASINO BONUS! PERFECT OFFER TO USE ON THIS TOURNAMENT! CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW TO JOIN. USE CODE 30F. NEW ACCOUNTS ONLY. 18+ T&Cs apply (See image for significant terms). Gamble Aware.
Afternoon Session
There are two parts to the afternoon session. The TV match in the first part of it looks an absolute belter when the world number one and maximum man from Wednesday, Judd Trump, takes on the dangerous Luca Brecel while over on the streamed table the ‘home’ man Mark Allen faces off against Scott Donaldson in what should also be a good match. The other matches in this first bit of the afternoon sees Zhao Xintong facing Lukas Kleckers who walloped Mark Selby on Wednesday, Dominic Dale meeting Ali Carter, Igor Figueiredo playing Zhao Jianbo in a match where both men have a huge opportunity in front of them and Kurt Maflin facing Ryan Day.
Two matches have been saved for second games on the main tables in this afternoon session. The world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan is up on the TV table and he’ll be out for revenge when he takes on a Matthew Stevens who knocked him out of the English Open last month. The streamed table sees John Higgins looking to continue his good form when he takes on the controversial Matt Selt for a place in the last 16.
Betting
I’ll go with just the one bet for this last 32 and it comes in the morning session where Michael White takes on David Grace and I’m going to take the ‘amateur’ to win the match. I put the term amateur in quotation marks because White is an amateur in name. He has a game that is comfortably good enough to be in the top 32 when he is confident and on song. I suspect the lockdown is forcing his hand a little bit when it comes to practicing but it is doing him no harm because he has qualified for the German Masters and made it through a couple of rounds here including a good win over Barry Hawkins on Wednesday.
To be fair to David Grace he has also played well in this tournament but his form has come out of the blue in terms of how well he has been playing this term so far, and even then he has beaten Dave Gilbert who is in chronic form himself, and Sam Craigie who can be hit or miss. White is a player I like to follow when he has his dander up and these wins he has picked up over the last week or so should have him believing in himself again. For me here’s the better of the two players and I’ll back him to show that here.
Tips
Back M.White to beat D.Grace for a 3/10 stake at 1.85 with Betfair
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2020
