The first round of the Welsh Open is in the books and on Wednesday the entire second round will take place on what is another hectic day of action inside the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, the venue of the final Home Nations event of the campaign.
The majority of the big guns have made it through to this stage of the event, some looking better than others it has to be said, and on Wednesday they will all aim to get through to the double round day on Thursday.
Morning Session
All eight tables will be occupied in the morning session and two of the greats of the game will be on show on the main ones. Mark Selby and Ding Junhui are first up on the live tables with the winner of the English Open and Scottish Open, Selby, up against the Chinese player Chen Zifan while UK champion Ding has the somewhat tougher task of Ricky Walden if he is going to make it through to Thursday.
Lu Haotian is the highest ranked player on the outside tables. He meets Anthony Hamilton while Anthony McGill takes on Mei Xiwen. Andy Lee picked up a surprise win in the first round and his reward is a clash with Robbie Williams while Sohail Vahedi meets Si Jiahui. The other two games in the first set of matches sees Simon Lichtenberg taking on Dominic Dale and Elliot Slessor going up against Ben Woollaston. Once again there are three matches in a mini second session in the morning. Noppon Saengkham plays Alexander Ursenbacher in one of them while Ashley Carty takes on Daniel Wells in another. Martin O’Donnell plays Tom Ford in possibly the pick of them.
Afternoon Session
The world champion Judd Trump is the first man up on the TV table in the afternoon session. He takes on the unheralded Billy Joe Castle while the streamed table will have the home star Matthew Stevens on it. He meets Brandon Sargeant who will be playing his first match of the tournament after receiving a walkover in the opening round. On the outside tables Yuan Sijun goes up against Jimmy Robertson in a good match while Yan Bingtao takes on Mitchell Mann and two Chinese players collide when Fan Zhengyi plays Xiao Guodong.
The other popular home ace Mark Williams will be second up on the TV table in the afternoon. He plays Jordan Brown who is having a decent enough season. Shaun Murphy will be on the streamed table as he has a clash with Alfie Burden. There is plenty of talent on the outside tables too with Jack Lisowski and Barry Hawkins among the players on show on them. Hawkins meets Tian Pengfei while Lisowski faces John Astley. Stephen Maguire is another leading name on the outside tables. He takes on Ian Burns while Mark Allen will go up against James Wattana if a third match is needed on the live tables. If not he’ll be on the first one that becomes available.
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Evening Session
It is the box office star Ronnie O’Sullivan that is up first on the TV table in the evening session. He faces a potentially tricky test in the form of Stuart Carrington while two former world champions meet on the streamed table when John Higgins meets Ken Doherty. There is a load of quality on the outside tables in this session too with the maximum man Kyren Wilson one of them. He plays Liam Highfield while Masters finalist Ali Carter meets Gerard Greene. Zhao Xintong walloped Graeme Dott in the first round and gets Louis Heathcote as a reward. Two good players meet when Luca Brecel takes on Scott Donaldson while the other two matches sees Gary Wilson playing Robert Milkins and Igor Figueiredo facing Mark Davis.
Two matches have been saved for second games on the TV tables once again. On the main table we will see the defending champion Neil Robertson on show. He plays Mark Joyce for a place in the next round while on the second table, the man Robertson beat in the final last year, Stuart Bingham, is in action. He will face Chen Feilong.
Betting
Two bets catch my eye on Wednesday. The first of them comes in the form of Elliot Slessor, who I fancy can continue his good recent run when he takes on Ben Woollaston for a place in the last 32 of the competition. Slessor had a decent run in Germany recently before he ran into a rampant Neil Robertson but he shook that off to beat Zhou Yuelong on Tuesday with a 50+ break in every frame that he won. He is playing some nice stuff at the minute. Woollaston hasn’t really pulled up any trees for a while now which is disappointing. I think he’s run into the wrong man at the wrong time here and will take Slessor at odds against.
Mark Joyce has already beaten Neil Robertson this season at the Northern Ireland Open and he will be getting a much more tired and jaded version of the Australian here so logic would dictate that he has every chance of beating him again. Joyce himself might be a little bit frazzled given that he went nearly five hours in a ding-dong with Fergal O’Brien in the first round but this should be a much more open match. Robertson looked knackered towards the end of the World Grand Prix final on Sunday was resembled a zombie at times in the first round here and openly admitted he doesn’t know how much he has left for this week. Joyce is 4/5 to win two frames and 4/1 to win the match. They are both too big.
Tips
Back E.Slessor to beat B.Woollaston for a 4/10 stake at 2.15 with Betfair
Back him here:
WON – Back M.Joyce (+2.5 frames) to beat N.Robertson for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with William Hill
Back M.Joyce to beat N.Robertson for a 2/10 stake at 5.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
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