The World Championship qualifying tournament begins on Tuesday and it does so with 32 players embarking on their quest to walk out at the Crucible Theatre to conclude their season later in the month, realising a dream for many of those on show.
We have two sessions of play on Tuesday, an afternoon one and an evening one with the players on show looking to progress to a second round clash with someone ranked between 49 and 80 in the world.
The Format
It is a 128 player event but this competition should be thought of as 16 eight player tournaments with each tournament winner progressing to take their place in the main draw. The first round sees those ranked 81-128 in the world and the 16 invited players battling it out. The 32 winners then progress to take on players ranked 49-80. Those winners go through to meet someone ranked 17-48 in the third round and the 32 winners from that round meet in the final round with the winners going into the main draw. The first three rounds of the tournament are the best of 11 frames with the final round the traditional best of 19.
Afternoon Session
We have two matches on the live and streamed tables in each session of the competition. The TV match in this session will see former world semi-finalist Andy Hicks going up against the multi-time Women’s champion Reanne Evans in one of the higher profile matches of the day. On the streamed table the Chinese player Chen Feilong will look to make it through to the next round when he goes up against the Irish player Aaron Hill.
The outside tables will all be occupied in this session with the pick of the matches in that part of the arena probably being the one between Kacper Filipiak and Andrew Pagett, two men who will fancy their chances of coming through. Riley Parsons faces Hayden Staniland in other match while David Lilley takes on Antoni Kowalski. Jamie O’Neill meets Oliver Brown in another good looking match while Eden Sharav plays Daniel Womersley. The other match in the session sees Jackson Page facing Chae Ross.
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Evening Session
All eyes will be on the man who has lost in six previous world finals on the TV table in the evening session when Jimmy White begins his quest to qualify for the Crucible Theatre when he goes up against the unknown Russian player Ivan Kakovskiy. The streamed table will see Kishan Hirani going up against the former Snooker Shootout winner Robin Hull in another very good looking match on this opening day of competition.
Once again the outside tables will be fully occupied in this session and one of the matches out there sees Si Jiahui going up against Ross Muir. Sohail Vahedi takes on the new member of the tour Allan Taylor, who might just see this week as something of a free hit now. Duane Jones faces Christopher Keogan in another match while the talented Ross Bulman will look to come past Rod Lawler. The other matches sees Adam Stefanow taking on Tyler Rees and Ashley Hugill facing Wu Yize.
Betting
Si Jiahui was one of the stories of the early part of the season and has wins over Stuart Bingham, Zhou Yuelong and Hossein Vafaei on his CV this term. A lot has changed since then of course but that clearly highlights that he is better than this level of opposition and I expect him to come past a Ross Muir, who used to be on the tour but dropped off because he wasn’t good enough, with a fair bit in hand. At this level I always think the scorers have a massive advantage as they know they are going to get all the chances they need to come through and that is what I feel will happen here. You would think with most players having not played competitively since March that talent will be a big thing here. The Chinese player leads on that score and can run out a comfortable winner.
Elsewhere I’ll take a chance on Allan Taylor to see off Sohail Vahedi as an outsider. I would make Vahedi the favourite for this match but he isn’t anything special and he could well be at a significant disadvantage here. That is because Taylor had three competitive matches in the Challenge Tour play-offs on Monday, winning all three to book his place on the tour for next season in the process. Taylor didn’t score fantastically it has to be said but there is no substitute for competitive play at the minute. Vahedi might win this by dragging it into a slugfest but the more comfortable player might well be Taylor and he looks overpriced as a result of that.
Tips
Back S.Jiahui (-1.5 frames) to beat R.Muir for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfair
Back him here:
WON – Back A.Taylor to beat S.Vahedi for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Betfred
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