The final day of qualifying for the World Championship takes place on Wednesday and by the end of the day we will know the identity of the 16 men who will join the top 16 in the draw for the final stages which will be made on Thursday morning.
The first of the two Judgement Days wasn’t really the dramatic and tense offering that we expected it to be so it might be that the tension has been saved for this day where some big names are under a lot of pressure to win and reach the Crucible.
Live Matches
Stuart Bingham was the biggest name to feature in the World Championship qualifying event this year and he is one win away from the place where he achieved ultimate glory in 2015. If he is going to get back to the Crucible Theatre he has to see off the potentially strong challenge of Luca Brecel. The other standout name in the qualifiers was Ali Carter and he’ll attempt to make it back to the Crucible after missing out last year when he faces a serious threat from Alexander Ursenbacher on the other streamed table throughout the day.
Other Matches
We will get to see the main action from all of the other six matches on the day on the World Snooker special Judgement Day show which is actually a decent watch. The big game is the one between the Shootout champion Ryan Day and the former semi-finalist in this tournament in Ricky Walden. We are guaranteed a debutant at the Crucible as Mark Joyce goes up against Igor Figueiredo. Gary Wilson was a semi-finalist in the event two years ago so he is under huge ranking pressure to make it through as £100,000 is coming off his tally at the end of this tournament. He faces Steven Hallworth who has never been to the Crucible in what should be a good match. The other three matches sees Zhao Xintong facing Sam Craigie, Martin Gould meeting Bai Langning and Chris Wakelin facing Xiao Guodong.
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Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the day with the first of them being on Ricky Walden to see off Ryan Day. Walden has shown a little bit of confidence this season and was unlucky not to make more of his run to the quarter final of the Scottish Open, when he went down in a deciding frame to Mark Selby in a match he gave as good as he got in. He’s also had last 16 finishes in the UK Championship and Gibraltar Open and generally looked good in his earlier win over Peter Lines. Ryan Day has done little of note this season apart from winning the Shootout and while that was welcome we can’t really use it as a form guide. We can use his win over Louis Heathcote as a form guide though and he looked like a man under real pressure in that. Throughout his career Walden has thrived more in the longer matches and I expect him to take care of Day here.
Speaking of players who looked under pressure in the previous round, it was written all over the face of Gary Wilson and you wouldn’t say he handled it all that well. To be fair to him, he outlasted Gerard Greene but that is all he did. He should beat Steven Hallworth but the Lincoln cueist might be looking at this as a free hit now having come from 5-3 down to dump out the Welsh Open champion Jordan Brown in the previous match. I mentioned earlier in the tournament when I took Hallworth to take out David Grace that he scores big and if Wilson isn’t on it here, or he feels the pressure or the nerves get to him Hallworth could run into a big lead here. Wilson just has to be opposed off the back of that last round effort.
Tips
WON – Back R.Walden to beat R.Day for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back S.Hallworth to beat G.Wilson for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Betfair
Back him here:
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