It is the day they call ‘moving day’ at the Welsh Open on Thursday as two rounds of the final Home Nations event of the campaign are played out inside the Motorpoint Arena in Cardiff, on a key day in the tournament.
The last 32 of the event takes place in the morning and afternoon sessions while the evening will see the last 16 played out as we play down to the quarter finals of the competition. As ever, time restrictions will stop us previewing the evening session but we’ll get stuck into the last 32.
Morning Session
All eight tables are in use in the morning session on Thursday and on the live TV one the UK champion Ding Junhui will be on show. He meets the former European Masters winner Jimmy Robertson for a place in the last 16 in the evening. The streamed table will also have a famous face on it as Mark Allen is in action. He meets one of the four remaining Welshmen left in the event in the form of Dominic Dale.
The outside tables have some decent players on them, not least Jack Lisowski, who goes up against Sohail Vahedi. Gerard Greene meets another Welsh player in Daniel Wells while the other one in action in the morning, Matthew Stevens, meets Zhao Xintong for a last 16 spot. The other three matches sees Luca Brecel facing Tian Pengfei, Shaun Murphy going up against Ben Woollaston and Stephen Maguire facing off against Robert Milkins.
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Afternoon Session
All eyes will be on Ronnie O’Sullivan first up in the afternoon session. Once again he will be on the match table when he takes on the experienced Anthony Hamilton. The Welsh number one Mark Williams will be on the streamed table when he goes up against Anthony McGill for a place in the evening session. Some serious talent will be on the outside tables in this session. Kyren Wilson is one of them and he’ll take on Martin O’Donnell while Mark Selby has been reduced to the extremities of the arena for his match against Andy Lee. John Higgins is another dotted around the venue for his match against Xiao Guodong.
Three matches have been saved as second match options for the TV coverage. On the TV table the world champion Judd Trump will go up against Igor Figueiredo, for whom this will be some day. Neil Robertson takes on Noppon Saengkham on the streamed table while a late finish for Stuart Bingham on Wednesday evening means he will play Yan Bingtao on an outside table slightly later than the other afternoon matches begin.
Betting
This is never the easiest day of action to bet on because you often see the big names on the outside tables struggle but then you need to be brave to take any of them on. There is one of them I’m happy to get stuck into though and that is Mark Williams. He might not be on one of the outside tables but after playing his first two matches on the main table, he is now on the streamed one which might take some getting used to.
The simple fact is that Williams is not playing well, as he has admitted to, whereas Anthony McGill banged in a couple of tons in the opening round and scored well enough in the second round as well. I’ve watched both of Williams’ matches in this tournament and if he was playing anyone comfortable in the surroundings he would have lost. McGill is that and the fact this is away from the biggest spotlight might well help the Scot. This hasn’t been a good season for McGill but a spin through to the final in the Championship League last month looks to have found a groove for him. I think he has what it takes to finally put Williams out of this thing.
Tips
WON – Back A.McGill to beat M.Williams for a 3/10 stake at 3.20 with Betway
Back him here:
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