The first round ends and the second round begins at the World Championship inside the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield on Thursday on a day when just two sessions of action take place to give the tables time to be re-covered.
The first round concludes with the two matches halfway through their duration being completed and on the other table the first two second round games play their first session of three.
Wednesday Recap
It was an up and down day from a betting point of view on Wednesday with Mark Williams safely covering the handicap for us but sadly we lost a bet, just our second loser in 10 completed bets this week, when Neil Robertson lost too tamely to Robert Milkins than we wanted. We are in a good position with Judd Trump who leads Chris Wakelin 6-3 overnight.
As well as those 10-5 wins for Mark Williams and Neil Robertson there was also a hard fought win for John Higgins on Wednesday. He saw off the strong challenge of Thepchaiya Un-Nooh 10-7 to book a second round clash with Jack Lisowski. Ryan Day opened up a 6-3 lead on Anthony McGill in the other outstanding match.
In Play Betting
Judd Trump and Ryan Day are both 6-3 up and both will surely come through on Thursday. I could not believe how negative Anthony McGill was against Day on Wednesday night and if he doesn’t get a little more aggressive and start scoring he won’t land a blow on the Welshman. We’re already on Trump to win 10-5 or easier so we don’t need to get involved in that match either so apart from the Trump handicap bet, our first round betting is done.
Joe Perry vs Mark Allen (Thursday 1pm, Friday 10am & Friday 7pm)
The opening match of the second round sees Joe Perry taking on Mark Allen. I would imagine when the draw came out, given his record at the Crucible recently, The Masters champion Allen would have expected to be playing Mark Selby here rather than Perry but the man from Cambridgeshire had other ideas.
You get the feeling that with Shaun Murphy out of this quarter as well this will be a really competitive match because there is every chance that a place in the semi-final awaits one of these two men. Perry scored really well in the first round with seven 50s and a ton whereas Allen only made three breaks over 56 which won’t cut it at this level very often.
Perry beat Allen at the UK Championship earlier in the season and the way he is walking around the table you get the feeling he is really comfortable with how he is playing at the minute. The entire season has been a struggle for Allen either side of Alexandra Palace and the first round here was too. I fancy Perry could put him out of his misery here.
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Lu Haotian vs Barry Hawkins (Thursday 7pm, Friday 2.30pm & Saturday 10am)
One of the more intriguing matches in the second round is the second one to get underway when the Chinese qualifier Lu Haotian takes on former finalist Barry Hawkins over the best of 25 frames across three sessions.
Haotian was very impressive in the opening round against Marco Fu. He landed a couple of juicy punts for us over the course of the contest and if he can repeat that level here he wouldn’t be without a chance. Hawkins was terrible by his own admission in beating Stuart Carrington but he might have been harsh on himself as he still made six breaks over 50.
I expect Hawkins to settle down and offer some of his best snooker from here on in but I don’t think Haotian will go without offering anything in this match. We saw in the two centuries that he made against Fu that he scores when he gets the chance. That came after four tons in qualifying so Haotian is scoring well enough to bang in a break of 106 or more at some point in this one.
Tips
Back J.Perry to beat M.Allen for a 4/10 stake at 2.50 with BetVictor
Back him here:
WON – Back L.Haotian to make a 106+ break for a 4/10 stake at 1.91 with Betfred
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