The second round of the Scottish Open concludes on Thursday and the entire third round gets played out on another busy day of action inside Venue Cymru in Llandudno as we determine the line up for the quarter finals.
The afternoon session will see the finale of the second round and then in the evening the third round will be played. We only know the identity of half of the evening session as the rest of it will see the earlier winners back on the baize.
Afternoon Session
Judd Trump will be the main attraction in the first half of the afternoon session. The Champion of Champions winner will take on David Lilley for the third tournament in succession. Inevitably that will be on the main table while over on the streamed table Dave Gilbert will look to make it back into the last 16. In order to do that he will need to beat Hammad Miah, who had a good win over Yan Bingtao on Wednesday. The other two matches that take place first up see Jackson Page meeting Matthew Selt and Scott Donaldson facing Ben Hancorn.
John Higgins is the big name on the tables in the second part of the afternoon. The man who has been beaten in the final of the first two Home Nations events this term will meet the current Shootout champion Ryan Day on the TV table. Martin Gould will be on the streamed table when he takes on Zhang Anda while the other two matches will see Hossein Vafaei meeting Li Hang in an all-Asian clash while Xu Si meets Martin O’Donnell in the other game.
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Evening Session
The first half of the evening session is absolutely loaded with quality with Ronnie O’Sullivan on the main table. He takes on Jamie Jones who is getting back to the form he had when he returned to the tour which is good to see. This session is so stacked with talent that the defending champion and world champion Mark Selby is only going to be on the streamed table for this match against Anthony McGill. Elsewhere in this first part of the evening Stephen Maguire will meet Ben Woollaston and the UK Championship finalist Luca Brecel goes up against Fergal O’Brien.
The winners from earlier in the day meet in the second part of the evening session. Assuming he overcomes the challenge of David Lilley as expected, Judd Trump will be on the main table. He will take on the winner of Dave Gilbert and Hammad Miah while the streamed table is likely to contain the winner of the John Higgins and Ryan Day match. They take on either Zhang Anda or Martin Gould while elsewhere either Jackson Page or Matt Selt will meet Scott Donaldson or Ben Hancorn and Xu Si or Martin O’Donnell will face either Hossein Vafaei or Li Hang.
Betting
There is one bet which I’m happy to get involved in over the course of Thursday and it comes right at the start of the day where Scott Donaldson takes on Ben Hancorn and while I understand why Donaldson is the favourite here, I’m not so convinced he should be as short as he is. Donaldson hasn’t had a great season so far and while he wouldn’t be the first person to hit form in this event there hasn’t been a huge amount so far to suggest it is happening.
His win so far this week came against Steven Hallworth when he fell over the line in the final frame. Just last week Donaldson was losing to Farakh Ajaib at the UK Championship so he looks like he is going to be there for the taking. Ben Hancorn isn’t the best player going around but he’s had two decent wins over a couple of talented youngsters this week in Bai Langning and Si Jiahui, with a couple of decent breaks against the latter. He might just be finding some form whereas Donaldson is grinding everything out. That eventually catches up with a player and it might well catch up with him here.
Tips
Back B.Hancorn to beat S.Donaldson for a 3/10 stake at 2.90 with William Hill
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