The first round of the final Home Nations event of the season concludes on Tuesday when the remainder of the opening stage of the Welsh Open takes place at the Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, on another decent looking day of action.
We get to see those who didn’t get their campaign underway on Monday on the green baize on Tuesday which means we see the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan, Mark Williams, Yan Bingtao and Kyren Wilson for the first time this week.
Morning Session
The Shootout champion Ryan Day gets the chance to lead off the action on the TV table on Tuesday morning when he goes up against Ian Burns. Had this not have been the Welsh Open we could probably have expected Jack Lisowski to be on the main table but as it is he has to settle for the streamed option, although they are both next to each other so it isn’t a massive disadvantage. Lisowski has to overcome the challenge of Lei Peifan to make the second round.
Six other matches take place first up with Stuart Carrington going up against Soheil Vahedi while the man who made it through to the World Championship in Jamie Clarke looks to make progress in his home open when he meets Oliver Lines. Liam Highfield went well at the Shootout and he’ll take on Jamie Curtis-Barrett while the other two matches first up sees Lu Ning playing Dylan Emery and Sunny Akani taking on Igor Figueiredo. There are two other matches in the morning session which have Ricky Walden meeting Jackson Page and Graeme Dott going up against Billy Joe Castle.
Afternoon Session
The home favourite Mark Williams is first up on the main table in the afternoon session. He faces another Welsh player in the form of Michael White. That should be a good match and there is a pretty decent one on the streamed table too as Stuart Bingham goes up against Robert Milkins in a match which could have big implications on the season of the former. There are two other matches in the first batch of games in this session with Tom Ford taking on Peter Devlin in one of them and Fergal O’Brien facing Aaron Hill the other.
The world champion Ronnie O’Sullivan gets his campaign underway in the second match of the afternoon on the main table. He meets the competent Robbie Williams while over on the streamed table another very good player is on show as Dave Gilbert meets Rory McLeod in a repeat of a controversial encounter from the English Open earlier in the season. The other two matches have Tian Pengfei facing Alan McManus and Nigel Bond meeting Rod Lawler.
Three other matches have been saved for third games in the afternoon and if another one is needed on the TV table then Ali Carter will face Daniel Wells. On the streamed table Scott Donaldson will go up against Gao Yang while the other match in the session sees Gerard Greene looking to enhance his tour survival chances when he takes on Farakh Ajaib in a match the veteran will be expected to win.
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Evening Session
It is the turn of The Masters champion Yan Bingtao to take centre stage to start off the evening session. He has a date with his countryman Xu Si. Over on the streamed table there is a right good showdown taking place as Thepchaiya Un-Nooh meets Sam Craigie while in the other three matches Anthony Hamilton goes up against Ben Hancorn, Jamie Wilson plays Duane Jones and Jimmy Robertson takes on Kacper Filipiak.
Kyren Wilson is the second big name up on the TV table in the evening session and he is another player who will take on a Chinese ace. His opponent is Chen Zifan while over on the streamed table Zhou Yuelong will be looking to boost his chances of reaching the World Championship automatically when he faces Ashley Carty. There is only one other match in this session and it sees the classy Martin Gould going up against Mitchell Mann.
Betting
This is a tough card to bet on because there are a lot of warm favourites who all look like good things but they are so strong that the price on a -1.5 line, which is the highest handicap line I would take on a favourite in a best of seven, is too low to justify the risk that is involved or the line is 2.5 which doesn’t interest me. There aren’t many outsiders that I like but there is one which I’m happy to get involved in and it comes in one of the later morning matches.
The form of Graeme Dott looks to have fallen off a cliff in recent times. He got beaten 4-0 by Robert Milkins at the Scottish Open just prior to Christmas and then proceeded to win one frame in 15 in the WST Pro Series before losing 5-2 to Jordan Brown in the German Masters. Annoyingly, Dott isn’t playing an opponent I’m completely comfortable in backing in Billy Joe Castle but you’ve got to think the confidence of the Scot is going to be quite low which should keep Castle interested. Interestingly he won their only previous meeting which might give the outsider a bit of belief in this match. Dott may well come through on his class alone but the 3/4 that BJC wins two frames looks worthy of support.
Tips
WON – Back B-J.Castle (+2.5 frames) to beat G.Dott for a 3/10 stake at 1.75 with Betway
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