The opening day of the Gibraltar Open sees the first round of the competition beginning out across three sessions of what should be yet another compelling day of snooker inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes, the current home of the sport.
The big names keep coming in this tournament but the event starts with the current top dog Judd Trump, who gets his title campaign underway in the evening session, while the likes of Ding Junhui, Masters champion Yan Bingtao and Shaun Murphy provide a decent looking support card.
Morning Session
There are two sets of matches which make up the morning session with The Masters champion Yan Bingtao the man on the TV table in the first of them. He meets Jamie Clarke who can be dangerous on his day in what should be a good match. As with a lot of the morning sessions there is a Chinese invasion with Zhou Yuelong also on show when he goes up against countryman Xu Si while another Chinese player is on show when Yuan Sijun plays Alexander Ursenbacher. The last of the matches sees Xiao Guodong taking on Martin O’Donnell.
The second set of morning matches sees the former world semi-finalist Dave Gilbert on the main table. He looks to have a winnable match against Paul Davison, although his form isn’t the best. Liang Wenbo is another of the Chinese players on show in the first match of the day. He takes on the French amateur Brian Ochoiski while David Lilley meets Duane Jones. The other game has Jimmy Robertson facing up to James Cahill.
Afternoon Session
There are another two sets of games in the afternoon session as well with the main table being occupied first up by another Chinese star in Ding Junhui. The Chinese superstar faces countryman Si Jiahui in a match the top 16 ace should win. Elsewhere Gary Wilson will look to improve his form when he faces Rob Milkins while Ricky Walden takes on Mark Joyce in a competitive looking match. The other game has Mitchell Mann meeting Lukas Kleckers.
Shaun Murphy is the man with the TV table treatment in the second set of matches when he takes on the lowly ranked Ashley Hugill while elsewhere Joe Perry competes in a big match for his automatic World Championship qualifying chances. He meets fellow veteran Mark Davis with the other two matches seeing Hossein Vafaei going up against Rory McLeod and Andy Hicks taking on Allan Taylor.
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Evening Session
There is only one set of matches in the evening session. That is where world number one Judd Trump begins the defence of his title in his pursuit to win the BetVictor series once again. He takes on a Robbie Williams who has shown he is competent this term. Three other matches make up the session. One of them sees Oliver Brown going up against Fan Zhengyi while Michael White plays Sohail Vahedi in another. The other match sees the first of our outright bets competing this week in Tom Ford. He takes on Zak Surety.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the action on Monday with the first of them coming in the match between Yuan Sijun and Alexander Ursenbacher in the morning session. It is the Swiss ace I like here. Sijun had a huge reputation and went fairly well last season but he is right on the bubble of keeping his tour card at the end of the campaign and defeat here will pile the pressure on his World Championship qualifying campaign. Away from the Pro Series, Sijun has lost his last five matches which isn’t ideal. Ursenbacher is having no such problem. He came to prominence again when he beat Ronnie O’Sullivan at the UK Championship. He had a decent week at the Welsh Open recently where he beat Noppon Saengkham and Robert Milkins before going down in a deciding frame to the eventual winner Jordan Brown. Ursenbacher is in much better form of these two and I expect him to win here.
The other bet I like is for Robert Milkins to beat Gary Wilson. I am lost as to how Milkins is not a much clearer favourite here. If you ignore the quirky Championship League and WST Series, Wilson hasn’t won a match in his last seven tournaments and in that time has been suggesting he is suffering from depression so if that is the case he has bigger issues than snooker matches right now. Milkins isn’t pulling up trees in terms of going deep in an event but he does have wins over Neil Robertson and Stuart Bingham in the last couple of months and was hitting the ball well in the Shootout recently. I’ve got to be against Wilson right now and Milkins is perfectly good enough to take care of him.
Tips
WON – Back A.Ursenbacher to beat Y.Sijun for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
WON – Back R.Milkins to beat G.Wilson for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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