The British Open returns to the snooker circuit on Monday as the opening day of the tournament is played out across what should be three excellent sessions of action inside the Morningside Arena in Leicester.
Often the star names are pushed back until later in the tournament but with the event being televised from Monday the high profile cueists come out to play almost right from the off. We’re a little late with the preview so we’ll just cover the two televised sessions here.
Afternoon Session
There are four tables in the arena so each session has two matches on each table. Two of the tables have full cameras on them and on the TV table first of all is the former world champion John Higgins. He meets Alexander Ursenbacher while over on the other table Ben Woollaston will look to feed off a home crowd when he meets Hammad Miah. The bookmaker sites will have streaming coverage of the other two tables and first up in the afternoon they will be occupied by another home man in Louis Heathcote and Yuan Sijun while Chen Zifan meets Farakh Ajaib in the other.
The second match on the TV table in the afternoon session sees Mark Williams going up against Tian Pengfei in a match which really could go either way. Over on the other main table Jimmy White will be in action when he meets the Irish professional Aaron Hill. The former world champion Ken Doherty will embark on the baize on one of the outside tables when he meets Zak Surety while Gerard Greene and Martin O’Donnell meet on the other table.
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Evening Session
The world number one Judd Trump will headline the TV action in the evening session. He will be first on the main table when he takes on the lowly ranked Mitchell Mann while on the other main table Thepchaiya Un-Nooh goes up against Matt Selt in one of the better matches on the day. The outside tables will be used in this session as well and Ashley Carty meets Bai Langning on one of them while David Lilley takes on Craig Steadman on the other.
The big match in the second set of matches in the evening session sees the former partners meeting when Mark Allen takes on the women’s ace Reanne Evans while over on the second table the home star Tom Ford will once again look to impress. He has a tricky assignment against Zhou Yuelong however. The other two matches see Ian Burns meeting Michael White while Stuart Carrington goes up against Liam Highfield in what looks a decent match.
Betting
There isn’t a huge amount that I like over the course of Monday. I’m largely going to see if this is a lottery like format that throws up the amount of shocks that people would expect or whether the top names are still able to make it through without too much difficulty. I would still expect the majority of the elite names to come through but it is those below the very top who might be vulnerable but we’ll see how that one plays out.
I do like one bet though and that comes in the match between Stuart Carrington and Liam Highfield where I think the former can come out on top. My instinct is that those who were in action last week will have an edge on those who weren’t but Carrington wasn’t just on show but he actually played very well in his group on Thursday but was unlucky to be in a with Tom Ford and Judd Trump. He actually beat the former and generally scored well enough throughout the day. Highfield played in the Championship League but lost out in his first group so he might have gone a little stale since then. Carrington looks a fair bet to me.
Tips
Back S.Carrington to beat L.Highfield for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Betfair
Back him here:
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