The World Championship continues inside the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield on Sunday and as the crowd increases as we go through the rounds so down the drama and tension and although no match concludes over the day, the action will remain as intense.
We now know half of the men who will line up in the quarter finals later in the tournament. On Sunday the four outstanding second round matches will all see action as we close in on the business end of the competition.
Day 8 Recap
It promised to be another high quality day of action on Saturday and that is exactly how it proved with big breaks flying in all over the place. The first match to finish saw Neil Robertson overcome the challenge of Jack Lisowski 13-9 before Kyren Wilson set up a last eight clash with the Australian when he took care of Barry Hawkins 13-10. The other match to finish was the one between the two legends with Mark Williams saw off John Higgins 13-7 in. Two matches started without finishing. They see Mark Selby and Shaun Murphy holding 6-2 leads on Mark Allen and Yan Bingtao respectively.
In Play Betting
There are a couple of matches that are in play but I don’t really fancy anything in them. I say that for a couple of reasons really. If we go with the Mark Selby vs Mark Allen match, Allen doesn’t have a good record in this tournament and it looked like that was weighing him down against Selby. Allen barely played at all and I wouldn’t be surprised if Selby pulls away now but I wouldn’t fancy betting on it. In the other match I’m not convinced Yan Bingtao is done with yet but if he does get back into it we’ll be much better placed for a better for the final session on Monday knowing he is back in it rather than hoping he gets back in it so I’ll leave these two alone.
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Morning Session
Dave Gilbert vs Judd Trump (Sunday 10am, 7pm & Monday 1pm)
The world number one is back in action on table two in the morning session on Sunday as Judd Trump looks to make progress towards a second world title. He goes up against the former semi-finalist Dave Gilbert who was a ball or two away from facing Trump in the final in 2019.
These two are no stranger to meeting each other and when they met at the Champion of Champions earlier in the season Trump slammed in five tons in a high quality 6-3 encounter. Hopefully that is the standard we see again here and we very well could do given how well both played, and more importantly scored, in their first round wins. Gilbert beat Chris Wakelin 10-4 with eight breaks over 50 which included three tons. Trump made nine 50+ breaks in a 10-4 win of his own against Liam Highfield.
Both these men like to get the balls open and score heavily and I don’t really see a reason why they would change their game here. I happen to think Gilbert will be more competitive than he is expected to be here but rather than guess if he’ll win or how many frames he’ll win I’ll take over 17.5 50+ breaks. There won’t be many frames in this match where there isn’t a 50 so even if Gilbert is only half competitive we are likely to see 20 frames which is enough time for this line to cover. If it is closer than that there will be ample time. I like the over here.
Stuart Bingham vs Jamie Jones (Sunday 10am, 7pm & Monday 1pm)
There are only two qualifiers on show in the second round of the tournament and they both meet each other on table one when the former champion Stuart Bingham faces Jamie Jones for the right to take on Anthony McGill in the quarter final later in the week.
Bingham had to come through an epic clash with Ding Junhui in the first round in which he made three tons and five more 50 breaks in a deciding frame win. His clearance from behind in the decider was real granite stuff and bodes well for him moving forward. Jones outlasted Stephen Maguire in the first round and is probably free rolling from here on in having earned £30,000 which is a decent week’s work. The big issue with Jones is he didn’t make a single 50 break in the first session against Maguire and he’ll get left behind if he goes a session without scoring from here on in. I think Bingham will win this purely on experience but I’m on him for this quarter which looks a great bet now O’Sullivan has gone so I’m not going to get involved again, not from the start at least.
Tips
Back D.Gilbert vs J.Trump – Over 17.5 50+ breaks for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
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