The second round of the European Masters takes place in one day on Wednesday when the remaining 32 men in the tournament look to book their spot in the last 16 on Thursday as the competition begins to heat up in Lommel.
It was another day without too many shocks on Tuesday although Neil Robertson and Barry Hawkins were high profile casualties but in the main the big names who turned up have made it through to set up a good looking day on Wednesday.
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Afternoon Session
The Masters champion Mark Allen will get play underway on the main table on Wednesday afternoon when he goes up against Jak Jones while the other main table will see one of the matches of the day taking place when Ali Carter faces off with Anthony McGill. The two matches on the outside tables first up will see Gary Wilson playing Ross Muir and Zhou Yuelong facing off against Jimmy Robertson.
It is Mark Selby who will have control of the TV table in the second batch of afternoon matches. He will take on Mark Davis while Ryan Day will take on Elliot Slessor, who has previously made a name for himself in this format. The big names keep on coming in this afternoon session with Stuart Bingham taking on Mark King in an all-Essex tussle while Ricky Walden will face off against Craig Steadman.
Evening Session
The defending champion Judd Trump is back on show in the evening session when he takes on the Chinese challenger Tian Pengfei with Kyren Wilson and his quest for another title this season continuing when he meets Allan Taylor. Fergal O’Brien and Liang Wenbo meet in an intriguing battle while Joe Perry will take on Andrew Higginson, who beats Perry’s good friend Neil Robertson in the first round.
The home hero Luca Brecel is saved until last on Wednesday when he faces up to the challenge of Alan McManus while Jack Lisowski will look to make it through when he meets Peter Lines for a spot in the last 16. Thor Chuan Leong will meet Anthony Hamilton on one of the outside tables with Zhang Anda facing Eden Sharav who has amazingly received two byes to make it this far and now has to get to work.
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Betting
This tournament has taken a turn for the worse for me in the last couple of days so I’m only going with the one bet on Wednesday which comes in the evening session where Fergal O’Brien looks to be overpriced to me to see off Liang Wenbo.
We saw Wenbo on the TV table on Tuesday and he looked very out of touch and out of rhythm and while he overcame Alfie Burden, the Londoner largely played into the hands of the Chinese player and I don’t see O’Brien making that mistake. Fergal already has wins over Luca Brecel, Shaun Murphy, Ali Carter and Marco Fu this season, the latter being beaten in the first round here, so he is in decent nick and he is capable of keeping Wenbo at long distance and make the Chinese star take risks. If he is as rusty as he looked on Tuesday he will leave himself exposed at certain times and the Irishman has shown he is good enough to take advantage of that.
Tips
Back F.O’Brien to beat L.Wenbo for a 4/10 stake at 2.38 with Bet365
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