The second day of action at the World Grand Prix sees the first round continuing at the Cheltenham Racecourse on Tuesday, when eight more matches take place across two sessions at the opening Coral Series event of the campaign.
We saw Ronnie O’Sullivan make progress on the first night of the competition and on Tuesday the likes of Judd Trump, Neil Robertson and Ding Junhui are among a host of star names who will be looking to follow him into the last 16.
Afternoon Session
Two matches will be on the main table in the afternoon session and gracing the green baize first up is the UK Championship winner Ding Junhui. He will take on a man he is very familiar with in Scott Donaldson as this will be the third tournament in as many weeks that they will have met in. Interestingly, Donaldson won their two previous encounters. Once they are done the European Masters champion Neil Robertson will begin his quest for a second successive ITV tournament when he meets Michael Holt.
The second table might be worth streaming in this session as well though because there are four decent players on show over there too. The action kicks off with The Masters finalist Ali Carter going up against Joe Perry for a place in the next round before the man who made it through to the German Masters just last weekend, Graeme Dott, faces a Kurt Maflin who had a solid start to the season and will be looking to rediscover that form this week.
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Evening Session
The top two seeds come out to play in this session in what is a high quality evening of snooker on paper. The world champion and winner of the German Masters over the weekend, Judd Trump, is first up on the main table, when he takes on the last man into the field in the form of Li Hang. Shaun Murphy is then the next big name to get their campaign underway when he meets the experienced Matthew Stevens, who is enjoying his best season in a while so far.
The quality on show in this session is so good that Mark Allen can only get a spot in the second table away from the main TV coverage. He takes on the former UK Championship finalist Liang Wenbo for the right to meet Ronnie O’Sullivan in the last 16. When those two settle their differences we will be left with two other tournament winners for the last match on this table on Tuesday, when the Shootout champion Thepchaiya Un-Nooh takes on the man who holds the Indian Open crown in Matthew Selt.
Betting
This is a day where there are a lot of warm favourites and it is hard to oppose most of them although Ding Junhui is one who is a little easier to oppose. I say that because he has played Scott Donaldson in both the European Masters and the German Masters in the last fortnight and he’s lost to him on both occasions. While that doesn’t necessarily guarantee he will lose here, it does at least highlight that the Scot is good value at 7/4 especially when he knows he has to win this match to be in with a chance of making it to Southport for the Players Championship. Ding did well to win the UK Championship but the last couple of weeks have shown he isn’t back to his consistent best yet. Donaldson will fancy the task here and he’ll do me at 7/4.
Ali Carter is in decent enough form at the minute having made it to the semi-final of The Masters and then followed that up to get to the same stage of the European Masters and he’ll have good memories of this venue, having made the final here 12 months ago. He takes on a Joe Perry who might have hit the buffers. Perry beat Ding at The Masters but then lost tamely to Shaun Murphy and in the two European events he failed to qualify for Austria and got wiped out in no time by Luca Brecel in the German Masters. Carter seems to have the bit between his teeth at the minute and he appears to be one of a number of favourites who can come through on Tuesday.
Tips
WON – Back S.Donaldson to beat D.Junhui for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back A.Carter to beat J.Perry for a 4/10 stake at 1.85 with Betfair
Back him here:
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