The first round of the UK Championship concludes on Thursday with the 48 players who are yet to get their campaign underway doing so on what is another busy day of action inside the Barbican Centre in York.
We’ve seen a number of star names start out in their quest for the first Triple Crown title of the season and on Thursday the two men who competed in the final last year are among the players beginning their campaign.
Morning Session
Martin Gould is the leading light on show in the morning session on Thursday. He will be on the TV table when he takes on Barry Pinches in a match he’ll be expected to win. The former finalist Liang Wenbo is also on one of the streamed tables when he faces the veteran Andy Hicks. Joe Perry is beginning to drop down the rankings so he could do with a decent week. He’ll start his tournament against Fraser Patrick. Zhao Xintong is on the other main table when he takes on his countryman Yuan Sijun.
Four other matches take place in the morning session with Lyu Haotian the highest ranked player on show on the outside tables. He faces Gao Yang while Joe O’Connor meets Fergal O’Brien in what could be a real battle. Ben Woollaston has a good record of coming through first round matches and he’ll be looking to keep that when he takes on Rory McLeod. The other match in this session sees Tian Pengfei taking on Simon Lichtenberg.
Afternoon Session
This is where the title defence begins for Neil Robertson. He’ll be on the TV table when he takes on the amateur John Astley who might be under more pressure after the comments made by Shaun Murphy the other day. This session is loaded with quality to the extent that Ali Carter taking on Jimmy White is only going to get one of the other main tables. Graeme Dott faces a big week as he pushes to qualify for The Masters. He faces Jamie O’Neill in the first round and on the other main table The Masters champion Yan Bingtao meets Ng On Yee.
Such is the quality in this session that the Welsh Open champion Jordan Brown can’t even get a main table slot. He will face Duane Jones on one of the outside tables while Luca Brecel will be another big name competing in that part of the arena. He opens up his account against Xu Si. Jimmy Robertson is having a good season and he’ll look to fire up another decent run when he meets the late entrant Bai Langning. Over on the other table Martin O’Donnell meets Lukas Kleckers.
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Evening Session
The newly crowned Champion of Champions winner Judd Trump is the headline act in this evening session. The beaten finalist of last season will open his campaign against the man he beat to start his run to the title in Bolton last week in David Lilley. Stuart Bingham is another big name on show and he’ll face Dean Young on one of the main tables while Mark Allen will go in search of a second title on the season when he takes on Michael Judge and on the other main table the Shootout champion Ryan Day takes on Peter Lines.
There are some good matches on the outside tables in the evening session including the all-Asian clash between Hossein Vafaei and Pang Junxu. Another one involves Robert Milkins and Louis Heathcote in a match which could go either way. Michael Holt isn’t in the best of form at the minute and he’ll be looking to snap out of his funk when he takes on Zak Surety. The other match in the evening session sees Sam Craigie meeting Ken Doherty.
Betting
There is just the one bet I like over the course of the day and that comes in the morning session where I think Joe Perry is a vulnerable favourite and thankfully for us we have someone in decent enough form to take him on with. That player is Fraser Patrick who has been going well this season. Perry certainly hasn’t. He has lost four of his six matches this term with the wins coming against Andrew Pagett who is new back on tour and then a deciding frame win over Steven Hallworth neither of which are the most convincing lines of form in the world.
Patrick pushed Neil Robertson close in German Masters qualifying after losing out to Xiao Guodong when the Chinese player smacked in a 147 in the deciding frame of their Scottish Open qualifier. Since then though he has beaten Stuart Bingham in the European Masters qualifying and then followed that up with wins over Hossein Vafaei and Shaun Murphy at the English Open. Those wins were all deserved with decent scoring and if he has that with him here he could easily win this. I certainly think he can reach four frames at the very least.
Tips
Back F.Patrick (+2.5 frames) to beat J.Perry for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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