The first round of the World Championship qualifying event concludes on Wednesday and the second round begins on what is likely to be a third successive day of drama, tension and excitement at the English Institute of Sport.
That is exactly what we have seen so far this week with the likes of Jimmy White and Ken Doherty already suffering their demise. Wednesday though is all about the return of a certain Stephen Hendry once again.
Morning Session
The first round of qualifying continues in the morning session where there are four more matches. The main table will be occupied by a pair of Fergal’s as Fergal O’Brien meets Fergal Quinn in a battle of both sides in Ireland. Over on the streamed table the rap star Peter Devlin will be looking to make it through to the second round. He plays one of the German players Lukas Kleckers, who has never really shown up to be much at this level.
There will be a couple of matches on the outside tables as well, both of which can be watched on bookmakers streams in some places. Kacper Filipiak will be looking to make progress in the competition when he takes on a Riley Parsons who is better than what we’ve seen from him so far. The most interesting match of the session could be the one which features the young Irishman in Aaron Hill. He meets Ashley Hugill.
Afternoon Session
There are four matches in the afternoon session as well as we conclude the first round of the competition. On the main table the last two men to grace the arena in the opening round are the Chinese teenager Lei Peifan and the Belgian youngster who is highly rated by many in Ben Mertens. The other streamed table will have Mitchell Mann fighting for his tour life when he takes on Robbie McGuigan in a huge match for the tour pro.
Once again we have a couple of other matches in this session on the outside tables, which as we know by now can be viewed with the bookmakers. The most interesting of those sees Ben Hancorn competing in the tournament as a professional for the first time. He meets Florian Nuble while the other match sees yet another German player in action when Simon Lichtenberg meets the Russian amateur Ivan Kakovskii.
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Evening Session
We move into the second round in the evening session and there was only one match which was ever going to be on the main table and that is the one which features Stephen Hendry. He’ll be looking to up his game dramatically from the performance he put in against Jimmy White in the first game when he meets Xu Si. The other main table has what should be a good game on it as the veteran Dominic Dale meets an Oliver Lines who bashed in three tons in his first round win.
Over on the outside tables it is the former finalist Nigel Bond and Liam Highfield who begin their qualifying campaigns. Bond faces Lee Walker who has already done overtime in the first round and nobody would be surprised if they go past midnight here. Highfield has the more attractive looking match against Fan Zhengyi who ensured that Zak Surety was no challenger to him in their first round clash.
Betting
I guess most people will be here for a view on the Stephen Hendry match where he is odds against to beat the 5/6 shot Xu Si. As I said on Monday I’m not sure Hendry is at the stage yet where he can string performances and wins together and we saw that because he was ordinary for much of that match but ran into Jimmy at his absolute worst. I would expect Hendry to improve and if he does Xu Si hasn’t had the best season known to man. You have to go back to the UK Championship for his last win in anything above a best of three so I’m certainly not interested in him at odds on. I can’t bring myself to back Hendry yet but if I was betting I’d chance that he offers more like the performance he gave against Selt at the Gibraltar Open, which would give him every chance here.
I will go with one bet though and it comes at the same time as that Hendry match, where I feel Oliver Lines could be a touch of value at 13/8. He had a fine win in the first round where he slammed in three tons and a few other big breaks and if he has that form with him then Dominic Dale will have a few problems. Dale can compete on the pro tour still but he doesn’t win a lot of matches these days and were he to lose this he would become a sitting duck in terms of keeping his tour card. He should be safe but there is no way of knowing that so he is playing with that pressure on his shoulders. Lines has improved of late. Prior to that win in the first round here Lines walloped Jamie Clarke and Riley Parsons in the first round in Wales and Gibraltar and came out of a Pro Series group which had Martin Gould and Dave Gilbert in it (he beat both in that). He then beat Zhou Yuelong and took a frame off Judd Trump in the next group so the improvement has started to come. Dale might still win this but the odds are too far apart in my eyes. I’ll take the outsider here.
Tips
Back O.Lines to beat D.Dale for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Coral
Back him here:
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