The second day of action in the China Open qualifiers sees another 24 matches being played up in Barnsley with the 48 players battling it out on the green baize for a ticket to Beijing next month.
The first day of qualifying was pretty low key with a couple of low profile shocks and a couple of bigger names pushed the distance but things crank up a little on Wednesday when the more established stars take to the tables.
Stars such as Neil Robertson, Shaun Murphy, Mark Allen and Stephen Maguire will all be looking to seal their spot at the penultimate tournament of the season when they play their qualifying matches so we’re all set up for a much more exciting day.
Given the big names in action and the fact they all have lower ranked players there are a lot of short odds floating about and some big handicaps to cover. I’m always reluctant to take the big handicaps in these qualifying rounds because the conditions are a big leveller as we saw on Tuesday when the likes of Michael White and Peter Ebdon were taken the distance.
I don’t expect too many shocks on Wednesday. I’m sure there will be the odd one or two. That’s the nature of the beast when there are so many matches on but I don’t expect many more because the season is in full swing now and the big names should be nicely warmed up.
A couple of medium sort of handicaps tempted me with Stephen Maguire only giving up 2.5 frames to Andy Hicks and the recent German Masters winner Martin Gould giving up the same start to Scott Donaldson. I would’ve been all over Gould but that was an emotional win and he wouldn’t be the first to struggle to get up for his next match after such a win.
So all in all I’m struggling for bets on Wednesday’s card but there is one I will take and that is on Graeme Dott to cover 2.5 frames against Jimmy White. White will tell anyone who listens that he is buzzing in practice but he’s only won one tour match all season which kind of shows you how far he has fallen.
Graeme Dott should be well up for this. There’s still every chance that he can make it to Sheffield automatically so every match is huge for him. He comes in here in good form having made the semi-finals in Germany last week where he beat the likes of Barry Hawkins and Stephen Maguire along the way and if he has anything like that form with him here he should cruise through.
Dott was scoring really well out in Germany and that could be significant here because White is unlikely to win too many frames in one visit in the form he is in so the worst I expect Dott to win here is 5-2.
Back G.Dott (-2.5 frames) to beat J.White for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with Coral
