The last 16 of the European Masters takes place over the course of two more sessions of play out in Lommel in Belgium and with the remainder of the tournament being played out on the TV tables there is a feel that the competition is about to go up a notch.
We have a number of seasoned campaigners and potential tournament winners through to this stage of the competition which should make for some good matches with some decent quality across the green baize.
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Afternoon Session
These last 16 matches come along in batches of two and in the first part of the afternoon we will see The Masters champion Mark Allen on show. He goes up against the Scottish player Ross Muir while on the other table at the same time another Scot will be in action when Anthony McGill takes to the baize. He faces Jimmy Robertson for a place in the quarter final.
The pick of the matches in the third round of the tournament comes in the second batch of games in the afternoon when the world number one and the winner in China last week, Mark Selby, goes up against the extremely competent Ryan Day. Mark King is on the other table taking on Ricky Walden in a battle of experience.
Evening Session
It is the Paul Hunter Classic champion Kyren Wilson that gets things moving in the evening session. He has the task of facing Joe Perry who should be doing much more than he has in his career. One of them will be a quarter finalist and they will play either Tian Pengfei or Liang Wenbo in the last eight when they meet in a Chinese tussle on the other table.
The Lommel crowd will be made to wait until the final match of the day to see their hero Luca Brecel in action. He takes on the former German Masters winner Anthony Hamilton having rescued himself from 3-0 down to Alan McManus in the previous round. Jack Lisowski will look to continue his good form on the other table when he takes on Zhang Anda.
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Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of this round and they both come in the afternoon session. Ross Muir has beaten a couple of seasoned campaigners in Lee Walker and Gary Wilson to make it to this stage but Mark Allen is a significant step up on that and I expect the Masters champ to run out a cosy winner here. Muir has only made two 50 breaks this week and he can’t beat Allen if he doesn’t score. These two have met twice in the past and Muir has lost 4-0 on both occasions. I’m not convinced he does much better here.
Mark Selby has to run out of steam soon and I fancy it could happen against a Ryan Day who is in superb form this week and who has a decent recent record over the world number one. You could see Selby looked jaded in his win over Mark Davis on Wednesday and with Day being a step up on Davis, who should have gone 3-0 up on Selby, I fancy the China Championship winner could have his work cut out here. Day is hitting the ball sweetly and is a big price to send the world number one back to his own bed for some much needed kip.
Tips
Back M.Allen (-2.5 frames) to beat R.Muir for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
Back him here:
WON – Back R.Day to beat M.Selby for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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