There is another big week in the snooker world coming up and before we get to the Shootout on Thursday, we have three days of China Open qualifying which gets underway in Cannock on Monday, as a bunch of players look to make it into the main event of an extremely lucrative tournament.
This is a huge event in the big picture of the season and as such even the qualifying competition is the best of 11 frames. Each player in the field will need to win one match this week to make it into the main event next month.
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Morning Session
World Grand Prix finalist Allister Carter is the headline act on show in the first session of the qualifying event. He takes on Allan Taylor on one of the main tables for a place in the main draw while two Chinese players will compete on the other streamed table for a spot in their own big tournament when Liang Wenbo takes on Zhao Xintong.
The outside tables are almost full in this session and Dominic Dale will be on one of them. He faces Rhys Clark while Sunni Akani will go up against Sam Craigie in what should be a decent match on another one. Kurt Maflin will look to build on his run to the Welsh Open quarter finals when he plays Ashley Hugill with the other two matches seeing Daniel Wells playing Kishan Hirani and Martin O’Donnell going up against Mei Xi Wen.
Afternoon Session
Barry Hawkins is the main star on show in the second session of the day. He faces Robin Hull for the right to book his flight on the plane to Beijing. That will be on one of the main tables and Marco Fu will be on the other one when he goes up against Niu Zhuang who will be looking to qualify for the tournament in his home nation.
Matthew Stevens is probably the star show on the outside tables when he goes up against the Swiss star Alexander Ursenbacher who will be looking to build on his win over Ronnie O’Sullivan in the Welsh Open last week. Rory McLeod faces Lu Ning on another outside table while Noppon Saengkham meets Jamie Clarke further out in the arena. Shootout champion Michael Georgiou warms up for the defence of his title when he takes on John Astley with the other match in the session seeing Matthew Selt meeting David Lilley.
Evening Session
It is a truncated evening session which was due to be headlined by Neil Robertson but his involvement in the Welsh Open final on Sunday means he plays later in the week so we have just four matches in the final set of games on the opening day.
Ryan Day will be on one of the main tables in the session. He goes up against Zhang Anda who will be looking for a second high profile Welsh scalp in as many weeks. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh may well be on the other streamed table in this session when he takes on Xu Si. All eyes will be on the Chinese youngster Yuan Sijun to see if he can see off Ian Burns to qualify for the main event while Alan McManus plays Luo Honghao in the other match.
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Betting
I’ll go with three bets over the course of the opening day. They begin with Matthew Stevens who I think will have too much for Alexander Ursenbacher. We see it all the time when a player has a massive result like he had last week that they struggle to follow it up in front of a couple of men and their dogs. Even if that wasn’t the case I would have fancied Stevens to have too much for the Swiss player. Ursenbacher has won one frame in the two best of 11 matches he has played this season and if you take out his run in Cardiff he hasn’t offered a whole lot this term. Stevens had a poor day in Cardiff but he’s had a good season aside from that. I think he wins this with a couple of frames to spare.
I also think Michael Georgiou can have the same margin in hand of John Astley in the same session. Georgiou played some lovely stuff in Cardiff last week and preparing to defend his Shootout title next week he should go very well here too. Astley has gone very much into hit or miss mode in recent times and over this distance I fancy the better form of Georgiou to make a difference. He is odds against to win this by a couple of frames or more and based on what we saw in Cardiff at least, that looks attractive to me.
Finally I’ll go with one in the evening session as well where I think the odds are the wrong way round in the match between Alan McManus and Luo Honghao. Since he made the quarter final of the English Open, the Chinese player hasn’t done a huge amount. We shouldn’t forget he was 3-0 down in the first round of that event so things could have been very different for him. McManus hasn’t pulled up any trees in recent times but he maintains the nous to see off young upstarts and actually although he lost to Nigel Bond in Wales last week, he banged in some good breaks so maybe his form is about to turn. At odds against it is the Scot for me against a youngster who has gone off the boil.
Tips
Back M.Stevens (-1.5 frames) to beat A.Ursenbacher for a 4/10 stake at 2.04 with 888sport
Back him here:
Back M.Georgiou (-1.5 frames) to beat J.Astley for a 4/10 stake at 2.08 with LeoVegas
Back him here:
WON – Back A.McManus to beat L.Honghao for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back him here:
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