The second day of action at the Northern Ireland Open sees the held over qualifying round matches continuing across the course of three sessions of play inside the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, where some big names are on show.
This feels like the day where the season really kicks into gear with the world champion Mark Selby, Judd Trump, Neil Robertson and Ronnie O’Sullivan all on show, with a pretty decent support cast in place to back them up.
Morning Session
There is just the one set of matches in the morning session. This session isn’t televised so you need the Eurosport App to be able to watch these games, or tune into them via the bookmaker streaming services. Three class acts are on show across the three tables with the highest ranked player being Stephen Maguire. He takes on Steven Hallworth on one of the tables while on another Stuart Bingham meets Ben Hancorn. The other match looks the most competitive of the three as The Masters champion Yan Bingtao faces Hossein Vafaei.
Afternoon Session
There are two sets of matches in the afternoon session. The first set will be headlined by the world champion and newly crowned world number one Mark Selby. He looks to have a comfortable draw to make it into the main draw with when he takes on the amateur Mark Lloyd. Also in this session John Higgin will look to qualify for the first round proper but he has a much stiffer test against a Joe O’Connor who has made a bright start to the season. Jack Lisowski is the other big name on show in the early stages of this session. He meets Ashley Hugill.
The home man Mark Allen will be the centre of attention in the second set of matches on Sunday afternoon. He looks to have a routine passage into the first round when he faces the Chinese amateur Si Jiahui. Neil Robertson is the other big name on show in this session. He starts up his season looking to make the first round when he goes up against Barry Pinches. There is one other match in this session and that sees the Northern Irish amateur Robert McCullough taking on the classy Sam Craigie.
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Evening Session
We have a really tasty evening session in store and that gets started with Judd Trump beginning his title defence when he meets the returning to the tour Andrew Pagett for a place in the first round. Kyren Wilson is considered a dark horse for this tournament but he faces an awkward challenge against Jamie Clarke. The other home favourite Jordan Brown is also in action first up in this session. He faces the British Open finalist Gary Wilson for a place in the main draw.
The second day of the tournament is rounded off with three more class acts on show. All eyes will be on Ronnie O’Sullivan to see how his form is heading into the main draw. He has a date with Stuart Carrington while on one of the other tables Barry Hawkins takes on the youngster from Ukraine in the form of Iulian Boiko. The British Open champion is the other star name on the baize on Sunday when he takes on Mark Joyce.
Betting
There are a lot of what you would expect to be mismatches over the course of Sunday. I daresay some will be closer than expected and there might even be the odd shock or two mixed in although I have to admit I don’t really see where that would automatically come from. I’m not really a fan of taking players to cover big handicaps at this stage of the season, especially with the big names here having not played since the British Open. There is one bet which takes my fancy though.
That comes in one of the evening matches where the home player Jordan Brown takes on Gary Wilson. I would imagine there will be a decent crowd in for this session with Judd Trump and Ronnie O’Sullivan in action on the main table but those who are coming to see Brown might leave disappointed because Wilson looks in good form at the minute. He has backed up his run to the British Open final by winning both qualifying matches and playing very well in both of them. Brown lost one of his qualifying matches and doesn’t look to be quite as on top of his game as Wilson does. There is an added pressure of playing at home too which might also go against Brown so I like Wilson to win this with a bit to spare.
Tips
Back G.Wilson (-1.5 frames) to beat J.Brown for a 3/10 stake at 2.20 with Betfair
Back him here:
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