The third day of first round action at the UK Championship forms the card for Wednesday as the second biggest ranking event of the season continues inside the behind closed doors setup at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes.
We still haven’t had a big name casualty in this tournament yet and the likes of Stuart Bingham, Neil Robertson and Ronnie O’Sullivan will be hoping it stays that way on Wednesday when they make their bow into the event.
Morning Session
Masters champion Stuart Bingham is the star attraction in the morning session when he goes up against the challenge of Zak Surety which will be on the main table while over on the streamed table we will see Zhou Yuelong starting out on what is an outside chance to make The Masters when he has a first round battle with the dangerous newcomer to the tour Peter Devlin who will be playing in his maiden UK Championship.
There are four other matches in the session, two of which are on the streams that the bookmakers have available and two which aren’t. The two streamed matches see the exciting Chinese player Zhao Xintong in action when he plays Rory McLeod while Noppon Saengkham is on the other stream for his match against Peter Lines. The two matches away from the cameras see Luo Honghao going up against Dominic Dale and Sunny Akani meeting Kacper Filipiak.
Afternoon Session
Neil Robertson gets his quest for another UK Championship title underway in the afternoon session on Wednesday. He will be on the TV table when he takes on the French amateur player Brian Ochoiski while over on the streamed table we will see his good mate Joe Perry in action. This is a big match for Perry as he chases a place in The Masters. He needs to make at least the quarter finals to have a chance of getting there and begins his campaign against Alex Borg.
There are three other matches in this session, two of which can be viewed with the bookmakers where two players who had solid World Championship campaigns earlier in the year meet as Martin Gould faces Jordan Brown. The other match sees the two veterans meeting when Alan McManus takes on Jimmy White. There is also a match away from the gaze of any cameras where Andrew Higginson goes up against James Cahill for a second round spot.
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Evening Session
The world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan begins his quest to add the UK title to his world success in the evening session on Wednesday. Inevitably he will be on the TV table when he goes up against Leo Fernandez who is only in the tournament by virtue of his performances at Q-School as he isn’t a professional. The streamed table will have the main O’Sullivan beat in the semi-final of the Northern Ireland Open last week on it as Ali Carter goes up against Ashley Carty in a match which could have big implications on the qualifying spots for The Masters.
Three more matches take place in this session with once again two of them taking place on streams that you can access through the bookmakers. Hossein Vafaei is in action in one of them. He meets Billy Joe Castle while the other one sees Mark Davis meeting Robbie Williams in a match that feels much more even than their respective rankings would suggest. The game away from the cameras sees Joe O’Connor taking on Duane Jones.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the action on Wednesday, one in the morning session and one in the evening. In the morning session I like the look of Dominic Dale to beat Luo Honghao whose star has well and truly waned. I’ve mentioned that already this season and although he beat Scott Donaldson in German Masters qualifying he has lost both his matches since then. Dominic Dale looks to be in a decent trot at the minute. He emphatically qualified for the German Masters and touched off Mark Williams in the Northern Ireland event last week before running into eventual semi-finalist Ali Carter in the third round. Dale is scoring well which catches the eye and I think he has the form to get rid of Honghao here.
Later in the night I’m going to take a seed who is actually an underdog for his match as Mark Davis takes on Robbie Williams. Williams had a decent run in the English Open where he made the quarter final and won a couple of tight matches to qualify for the German Masters but offered nothing against Joe Perry in the Northern Ireland event last week. Davis hasn’t had the deep results that he would have liked this season but he has beaten Zhao Xintong and Xiao Guodong this season which is decent enough form. Davis goes under the radar a little bit but he still scores fairly well and I think this match is a lot more 50:50 than the odds suggest. Davis might actually be a spot of value at 11/10.
Tips
WON – Back D.Dale to beat L.Honghao for a 3/10 stake at 1.95 with Betfair
Back him here:
Back M.Davis to beat R.Williams for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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