The first round of the Scottish Open concludes and the second round gets underway on what looks like another mouth-watering day of Home Nations action in Llandudno on a very appealing looking Wednesday.
The tournament is beginning to heat up nicely with big names largely all making it through safely on Tuesday, with the exception of Kyren Wilson, so we should be getting plenty of good snooker over the course of Wednesday.
Morning Session
It is a morning session which is first round action all the way and it is Martin Gould who will occupy the TV table. He takes on a current Home Nations event holder in Jordan Brown for a place in the second round. The streamed table will see one of the heroes of last week on show when Hossein Vafaei meet Wu Yize while on the outside tables Mark King meets Martin O’Donnell and there is also a sighting of the former world champion Ken Doherty who takes on Xu Si for a spot in the last 32 of the competition.
Afternoon Session
The first round of the tournament concludes on Wednesday afternoon and as ever in the afternoon session there are two sets of matches. The first set will see all the tables in use and on the TV table we will see John Higgins taking on a man he has had a few problems against in the past in Noppon Saengkham. The Masters champion Yan Bingtao has made it through the best of seven stage in the first two Home Nations events and he’ll be looking to continue that streak when he faces Hammad Miah. The other two matches sees Zhang Anda looking to build on his win over Ding Junhui in the held over qualifying round when he plays Mitchell Mann while David Lilley faces Michael Holt.
There are just the two other matches in the first round and they conclude a light second set of games in the afternoon. The TV table will have the world number two Judd Trump on show. He meets Craig Steadman while the streamed table will see Shaun Murphy looking for a big win to assist his quest to qualify for the World Grand Prix next week. He meets Li Hang in a match which certainly won’t be easy.
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Evening Session
We move into the second round for the evening action on Wednesday when Ronnie O’Sullivan gets the session underway on the main table when he faces a former Home Nations event winner Liang Wenbo in what looks like an appealing match. Stephen Maguire will be on the streamed table when he takes on Tom Ford, who could see the draw open right up for him if he can see off the Scot. The other two matches in the first part of this session sees Lei Peifan facing Ben Woollaston and Fergal O’Brien meeting Gary Wilson.
It is all about Mark Selby in the second part of the evening session. The world champion continues his title defence against the competent Xiao Guodong in a match which will be on the TV table. Anthony McGill is back on the streamed table when he goes up against the British Open semi-finalist Jimmy Robertson while the UK Championship finalist Luca Brecel will be reduced to one of the outside tables to take on Pang Junxu. A decent evening session concludes with Jamie Jones going up against Sam Craigie.
Betting
I’ll go with one bet over the course of Wednesday and that is on Li Hang to see off Shaun Murphy. I don’t know what it is but there is clearly something wrong with Murphy at the minute. He had that outburst after losing to Si Jiahui in the UK Championship which was very much out of character for him and then he struggled like you wouldn’t believe against Ng On Yee in the previous round here. Murphy hasn’t really got going this season. Whether that is a hangover from the world final or not I’m not sure.
Hang hasn’t pulled up too many in the way of trees over the course of the season but he has had a couple of unlucky defeats. The longer the campaign has gone on though the better he has started to look and he is more than good enough to take care of Murphy. Hang isn’t really known for his scoring power but he can score and he has a good enough brain to keep Murphy at distance. If there isn’t a dramatic improvement in the world finalist from earlier in the year I would expect Hang to land a tasty price here.
Tips
Back L.Hang to beat S.Murphy for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Bet365
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