The second round of the World Grand Prix comes to an end inside the Cheltenham Racecourse on Thursday and the first two quarter finals take place when the opening Coral Series event continues on another decent looking card.
We have already seen the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan and Gary Wilson make the last eight and in the afternoon session the world champion Judd Trump and form horse Neil Robertson are among the men looking to join them.
Afternoon Session
There are two matches on the main table in this afternoon session with three world champions among the four players on show and the other player is a man many expect to claim that crown at some point. We begin with the current holder of that title and the defending champion here in Judd Trump. He takes on Kyren Wilson before Neil Robertson takes centre stage to take on Mark Williams and his dodgy foot.
The schedule isn’t exactly terrible on the second table where The Masters quarter finalist Joe Perry is first on the green baize. He faces a Scott Donaldson who is looking for a couple more wins to make it to Southport. The second game could easily have been on the main table as John Higgins looks to take a step closer to another big title when he comes up against the dangerous scorer that is Zhao Xintong.
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Evening Session
We move up to the best of nine frames for the evening session where the quarter finals get underway. There is one match on both tables in the evening with the main table seeing a repeat of the 2004 World Championship final as Ronnie O’Sullivan takes on Graeme Dott. O’Sullivan needs a win here to enhance his claims for making it into the Players Championship while Dott looks in a good spot to make it there already.
On the second table two men who have teetered with the fringes of the top 16 in the official world rankings and who continue to do so meet for a place in the semi-final when Tom Ford takes on Gary Wilson. The money goes up quite quickly from here on in so a win here could be worth plenty to whoever gets it as the chase for automatic qualification for the World Championship begins to intensify now that the China Open has been cancelled.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets on Thursday with the first of them on Neil Robertson to come past Mark Williams with a bit in hand. Robertson has spoken of potentially struggling to be at his best this week after two non-stop weeks of snooker but despite that he still make four 50+ breaks in beating a game Michael Holt in the opening round and I’ve got to think he’ll have too much for a Mark Williams who was visibly struggling on Wednesday. He gave up a huge number of chances to Barry Hawkins in the first round and if Robertson gets anything like the same number of gifts he isn’t going to pass them up in the way the out of form Hawkins did. I can’t see any result other than Robertson winning this no worse than 4-2.
The other bet I like comes in the evening session where the 5/4 on Gary Wilson to make a century looks decent enough to me. Tom Ford is unlikely to get bogged down too much so I’m expecting the balls to be open here which should play nicely into the hands of Wilson, who has made a century in each of his last two ranking event matches against Ford. He made three of them in the three frames he won against the Leicester man in a Championship League match earlier in this campaign so with the way the tables are playing here the odds against on the heavy scoring World Championship semi-finalist looks decent enough to me.
Tips
WON – Back N.Robertson (-1.5 frames) to beat M.Williams for a 4/10 stake at 1.80 with Betfred
Back G.Wilson – Over 0.5 centuries for a 3/10 stake at 2.25 with Betfair
Back him here:
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