After the thrills and spills of the Northern Ireland Open last week, the snooker attention turns back to the qualifiers as the qualifying event for the German Masters gets underway in Cannock on Monday afternoon.
Everyone in the field will be eager to win the two matches needed to book their place at the main venue because the Tempodrom in Berlin is one of the best arenas on the circuit with a brilliant atmosphere so this should be a good week of snooker, especially with matches being the best of nine frames.
Afternoon Session
We have four tables in operation this week with two of them being streamed on the Eurosport Player and the other two being shown by certain bookmakers. The highest ranked player on show in the afternoon session is Anthony McGill. He has played five matches this season and lost the lot so he’ll be looking to kick his campaign into life here. He goes up against the talented but inconsistent Louis Heathcote in what is a tricky test for the Scot. The other main man on show in this first session is Zhou Yuelong. He plays a Peter Devlin who is likely to have a go against him.
Four other players will look to make it to within a win of booking the plane to Germany in this afternoon session. Hammad Miah is having a decent season so far and he’ll be eyeing up a win when he takes on Jamie O’Neill. The other match looks a fairly competitive one with Mark Joyce always pretty hard to beat. He’ll be expected to beat Zak Surety but the Englishman shouldn’t be written off without a chance.
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Evening Session
All eyes will be on Stephen Maguire in the evening session. He was unlucky not to see off Mark Allen in the last 16 of the Northern Ireland Open last week which had he done so that title could easily have been his. He begins his German Masters campaign with a clash against Dominic Dale. That will be on one of the streamed tables while on the other Tom Ford returns to action after having to miss the event in Belfast last week due to testing positive for Covid-19. He faces his fellow Leicester potter Joe O’Connor in a good looking match.
It is a big evening for Lukas Kleckers, who will dearly love to be involved in the main stages of his home tournament. He will have seen the inspiration the crowds gave Mark Allen last week and will want a piece of that himself. In order to move to within a win of that becoming a reality he needs to beat Yuan Sijun, whose career looks to have stalled. The other match looks an intriguing one as Ashley Hugill takes on the much improved Allan Taylor who almost beat Shaun Murphy last week.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets here with the first of them being on Louis Heathcote to beat Anthony McGill. The Scot isn’t going to keep on losing but he is a player who goes through lengthy spells of form – both good and bad. I just think Heathcote is overpriced here. Heathcote was spoken in huge terms a couple of seasons ago but hasn’t really kicked on as was expected. He is talented though and if McGill continues to underperform then the Leicester man is certainly good enough to take care of him. 11/5 feels like a big price on a bloke who doesn’t have a lot to lose against one who doesn’t have much to gain but a lot to lose. I’ll side with Heathcote in this one.
The other bet I like is for Allan Taylor to see off Ashley Hugill. Taylor is one of those players I have my eye on in the early stages of events with the right draw because he can score heavily and lower down the rankings that is often what sorts the men out from the boys. Taylor was 3-1 up on Shaun Murphy last week and almost took care of him in the deciding frame. He’s been in good form this season. Hugill lost all three Home Nations qualifying matches but he lost them 4-3 and in fairness to him going down in a decider to Matt Selt in the Scottish Open and Jack Lisowski in Belfast last week weren’t terrible efforts but he lacks wins. Taylor doesn’t and I think he can advance here.
Tips
Back L.Heathcote to beat A.McGill for a 3/10 stake at 3.20 with Coral
Back him here:
Back A.Taylor to beat A.Hugill for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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