The first day of the UK Championship at the Barbican Centre in York sees the opening round of the tournament begin with two sessions of play as the maiden Triple Crown event of the season gets underway.
We might only have 16 first round matches on show across the eight tables on Tuesday but we are not short of big names in action with three tournament winners on the season so far all looking for a place in the televised stages.
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Afternoon Session
Former champions Ding Junhui and Neil Robertson will occupy the main tables in the first session of the tournament. They will be expected to come through and into the TV stages of the competition when they face Adam Stefanow and Kishan Hirani respectively. Both men look to have their work cut out against seasoned opponents.
The outside tables will be fully loaded in this session with Yuan Sijun up against Ken Doherty while Zhou Yuelong meets Soheil Vahedi. Shootout champion Michael Georgiou meets Luo Honghao with Jack Lisowski meeting Zhang Jiankang. There is an all-Chinese battle as Lu Haotian takes on Tian Pengfei and in the other match in the session Martin O’Donnell plays Xu Si.
Evening Session
Two tournament winners are on the main tables in the evening session on the opening day when Northern Ireland Open champion Judd Trump takes on the amateur David Lilley on one of them. Lilley made the final of the Challenge Tour event at the weekend so he’s in good form. Kyren Wilson is the other winner on show. He faces Hong Kong’s Andy Lee.
We have a full set of outside table matches as well with Bel Woollaston facing Alfie Burden on one of them and Matt Selt meeting Zhang Yong on another. Dominic Dale and Gerard Greene meet elsewhere in the venue with Michael Holt meeting Chen Zifan. Robert Milkins plays Sanderson Lam while Ricky Walden takes on Jak Jones in the other matches.
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Betting
I’ll go with two bets over the course of the day with the first coming in the afternoon session. Soheil Vahedi is in the middle of a shocking season where he has barely won a frame let alone a match and he looks extremely vulnerable to the heavy scoring and capable snooker of Zhou Yuelong. To be fair we’ve not seen as much from Yuelong as we should be doing this season but he has an ideal chance to put that right here. He is talented enough to go deep in these sort of events and he can show his credentials by easing past the Iranian struggler.
Dominic Dale is another player who is having a wretched season. He faces Gerard Greene who isn’t pulling up trees himself but he’s in better form than the Welshman and might be suited by this longer test. Greene had a good win in the first round in Northern Ireland last time out before losing in the second round but in that tournament alone he matched Dale’s wins over professional players for the season. Dale must be low on confidence so at odds against Greene is the right bet here.
Tips
WON – Back Z.Yuelong (-3.5 frames) to beat S.Vahedi for a 4/10 stake at 2.15 with Boylesports
Back him here:
Back G.Greene to beat D.Dale for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with Betfred
Back him here:
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