While the stars of the snooker world are preparing for The Masters, the rest of the tour head to Barnsley to compete in qualifying for the 6 Red World Championship, a qualifying event which begins on Saturday.
There are three sessions of play on the opening day of the tournament with each match being the best of 11 frames. The only difference is that unlike in a normal frame of snooker, there are only six reds on the table at the beginning here.
Morning Session
Each session of play has two sets of matches in it in this competition and the pick of the matches in the opening set of games sees Xiao Guodong taking on David Lilley. Michael White will be looking to make it into the next stage of the competition when he goes up against Sanderson Lam while Robbie Williams will face Rebecca Kenna. Another woman in action up front is Ng On Yee. She will meet Tian Pengfei with the other three matches sees Mark Joyce facing the Belgian amateur Daan Leyssen, Latvian amateur Rodion Judin going up against Asjad Iqbal and Liam Highfield playing Hammad Miah.
There are just five matches taking place in the second part of the session with the Gibraltar Open champion Robert Milkins probably the pick of the players on show. He meets Zhang Anda while Anthony Hamilton will look to use his scoring power to get the better of Duane Jones. Lei Peifan showed what he can do with 15 reds on the table against Neil Robertson at the English Open at the end of last year and he will be expected to beat the English amateur Mickey Joyce. Jamie Clarke faces Allan Taylor in one of the other games while Lukas Kleckers will meet an amateur in the form of Jack Harris in the other.
Afternoon Session
Jamie Jones is the highest ranked player in the first part of the afternoon session. He will go up against Gerard Greene for a place in the next round while Lyu Haotian will take on Peng Yisong in a match which might have more eyes on it than normal given the amount of Chinese players under scrutiny in the sport at the minute. Ben Mertens will go up against Jenson Kendrick on an outside table while Mark Davis plays Alexander Ursenbacher. Two amateurs meet when Ian Martin goes up against Heather Clare with two more from the unpaid ranks playing as Fergal Quinn takes on Dylan Smith. Barry Pinches meets Andrew Pagett in the other game.
Some of the bigger names begin to come to the party from the second part of the afternoon. They are headed up by the Scottish Open champion Gary Wilson who will take on the Ukrainian player Anton Kazakov. Ashley Hugill has had a good season which he’ll be looking to build on when he meets an amateur in Phil O’Kane. Oliver Brown faces Xu Si, Jamie O’Neill plays Martyn Taylor while the match between David Grace and Cao Yupeng might be the pick of the session. Mark Lloyd plays Reanne Evans in the other match.
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Evening Session
Matthew Stevens is the leading name on show in the first part of the evening session. The draw hasn’t been particularly kind to him though as despite all the amateurs in the draw, he has got a professional in Elliot Slessor. Rod Lawler does play an amateur in Patrick Whelan while two more amateurs meet when Peter Devlin plays John Fearick. Another amateur in Ben Fortey meets Yuan Sijun with Ben Woollaston playing Dylan Emery and Ian Burns taking on Adam Duffy to complete the first part of the evening.
The standout match in the second part of the evening is the one which pits two talented youngsters together as Jackson Page takes on the exciting Alfie Lee. Scott Donaldson has an amateur opponent in the form of Andrew Milliard while Peter Lines faces another in Leo Fernandez. Tom Ford will face another amateur in Jack Bradford while John Astley also has a non-professional in Sean McAllister. The other match in the session sees Si Jiahui meeting James Cahill.
Betting
I’ll open up the competition with the one bet and that comes in the form of a Robert Milkins who tends to have a pretty decent record in these quirky events and who I expect to get the better of Zhang Anda in fairly comfortable fashion. This 6 Red gig suits the aggressive potters and that is exactly what Milkins is so I expect him to be suited to the challenge here, unlike Zhang Anda who tends to lose whenever he comes up against anyone above a certain ranking.
These two met in the qualifying for the UK Championship where Milkins won 6-3 and I’ve been saying all season how he is a confident cat after that tournament win in Gibraltar last season. Zhang is competent but seems to lack that gear of consistency which could take him to the level of some of his Chinese compatriots. This event should be right up the street of Milkins and I think he can open his campaign with a comfortable win.
Tips
Back R.Milkins (-1.5 frames) to beat Z.Anda for a 3/10 stake at 2.05 with William Hill
Back him here:
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