The second round of the UK Championship comes to a close on Sunday when the last 16 matches in the last 64 are played out on a day where the tournament begins to come to life inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes.
We saw big names progress but a few exit the competition on Saturday and it will be interesting to see whether the form guide comes to fruition on Sunday or whether the shocks and surprises keep on coming along.
Afternoon Session
It will be all about the world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan in the afternoon session on Sunday. He will get the TV treatment when he takes on a man who has beaten him in the past in Alexander Ursenbacher so that is something of a banana skin. On the main streamed table Mark Selby will be looking to take a step closer to another UK title when he goes up against the birthday boy Liam Highfield for a place in the third round. Two other matches will be able to be viewed with the bookmakers. They see Stuart Bingham going up against Andrew Higginson and Thepchaiya Un-Nooh meeting Joe O’Connor in a match where the Thai can all but secure his place at The Masters with a win.
Four other matches take place in this session and among them two veterans of the tour meet when the former world champion Graeme Dott continues his bid to make The Masters at the last minute. He faces Mark King while two men who entertained us at the World Championship meet when Kurt Maflin takes on Jamie Clarke. Ricky Walden is also in action on Sunday when he faces Ashley Carty while Matt Selt faces Lu Ning in the other game.
Evening Session
We see the world champion in the afternoon session and in the evening session it will be the man he beat to win that title who takes centre stage when Kyren Wilson goes up against the obdurate Mark Joyce on the main table. The streamed table will have a former winner of this tournament on show when Shaun Murphy looks to move into the third round when he comes up against Elliot Slessor who seems to enjoy facing the big boys. The two other streamed matches see Mark Williams facing Sunny Akani and Jack Lisowski meeting Tian Pengfei.
As with the afternoon session there are four matches away from the spotlight of the streamed cameras and they see the former finalist Liang Wenbo going up against Andy Hicks, Noppon Saengkham taking on the Chinese player that is making a big impression in Pang Junxu, the Brazilian ace Igor Figueiredo meeting Joe Perry who is pushing hard to qualify for The Masters and Jordan Brown going up against Jamie Jones.
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Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets for the day on Sunday and they both come in the evening session with the first one being on a Sunny Akani who I think can get the better of Mark Williams at a nice price. There is no evidence to suggest that Williams is playing as well as he can. He hasn’t been past the second round of the few tournaments he has entered this season and you sense that a lack of practice could be the reason for that. He now takes on the biggest practice exponent of them all in Akani who needs to be peeled off the table and might need to be scraped off the table here. The thing I like about the Thai is he can score when he gets the chances and if Williams isn’t bang on it, and the evidence is that he isn’t, then Akani can progress at a nice price.
Jordan Brown might have a bit of an advantage in his match with Jamie Jones on one of the other tables. I say that because he has played a match in this tournament so will be used to how the tables are playing and things whereas Jones hasn’t because his first round opponent Matthew Stevens had to withdrawal after recording a positive Covid test. Brown didn’t just play a match but he played a very good one in beating Martin Gould and the confidence he’ll have gained from that can stand him in good stead here. Jones hasn’t quite made that big breakthrough on his return to the tour yet and while he’s lost little of his ability a bit of rust could well be his undoing against a Brown who is beginning to make a stride or two in the game.
Tips
Back S.Akani to beat M.Williams for a 3/10 stake at 3.40 with Coral
Back him here:
Back J.Brown to beat J.Jones for a 3/10 stake at 2.05 with Betfair
Back him here:
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