The opening day of the Scottish Open is an extremely busy one, as all the Home Nations starters are. Half of the first round will be played out in Glasgow as the final tournament of the decade gets underway in style.
In some tournaments we have to wait a while to see the big names come to the party but that is not the case here with the likes of Mark Allen, John Higgins and Neil Robertson all on show right from the first day.
Morning Session
We have a pair of Scots on the two main tables to kick off the tournament. On the televised table Anthony McGill will look to follow his practice partners Stephen Maguire and John Higgins in showing what he is capable of when he takes on Hammad Miah in a tricky little match. Speaking of awkward tests, Scott Donaldson is the other Scottish player on show in the spotlight and he will take on the exciting looking Chinese youngster Lei Peifan.
The outside tables are going to be full for the majority of the day with Anthony Hamilton meeting Louis Heathcote on one of them while Gerard Greene faces off with Elliot Slessor on another of them. Robbie Williams has a first round date with Chris Wakelin on another of them while two lower ranked players face off in what is a big opportunity for both as Billy Joe Castle meets Ashley Carty. The other two matches in the session sees Peter Lines taking on Simon Lichtenberg and Andy Lee meeting Fergal O’Brien. There are three matches as a stop gap on the outside tables. The World Championship semi-finalist Gary Wilson is in one of them when he faces Rod Lawler while Lu Haotian takes on Andrew Higginson and Riley Parsons plays Lu Ning in the other games.
Afternoon Session
There are two sets of matches in this session as well with the main table seeing the defending champion Mark Allen beginning his title defence first up. He plays the veteran Andy Hicks in a match he will be expected to win but it will be interesting to see if his dusting down by Stephen Maguire in York has affected him. Barry Hawkins is on the streamed table. He plays John Astley. On the outside tables there are some good names. Alexander Ursenbacher meets Michael Holt on one of them while Si Jiahui faces Brandon Sargeant on another of them. Robert Milkins plays the man of the moment Nigel Bond in the other match.
The home hero John Higgins gets his quest for a title in front of his fellow Glaswegians underway on the main table in the second TV match of the afternoon when he takes on a Jamie O’Neill who almost beat Ronnie O’Sullivan in the first round of the English Open earlier in the campaign. There is a cracking match on the second table when Thepchaiya Un-Nooh faces Liang Wenbo while on the outside tables Adam Stefanow plays David Grace and Jamie Clarke meets Mike Dunn. If a third match is needed on the TV table then Joe Perry will take on Michael Collumb.
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Evening Session
The former world champion Mark Selby is first up in the evening session on Monday night when he takes on Mark Joyce in a match which will be on the TV table while over on the streamed offering Graeme Dott will take on Igor Figueiredo for a place in the second round. Jak Jones goes up against Mark King on an outside table while Sam Craigie faces Marco Fu in one of the matches of the round. Ian Burns meets Craig Steadman for the second time this season while Luca Brecel plays Martin Gould in another tasty offering. Kacper Filipiak plays Michael Georgiou in the other game.
As ever a couple of matches are saved for second games on the main table and it will be the Champion of Champions winner Neil Robertson who competes on the TV table. He goes up against the former world champion Ken Doherty while on the streamed table, Ryan Day will look to get his season back on track when he goes up against a Thor Chuan Leong, who he really should be beating.
Betting
These Home Nations events are busy weeks but I’m only going to kick it off with one bet. There are a lot of one-sided matches or favourites who I wouldn’t mind taking on but don’t have the opponent to do it with. There is still a couple of weeks of snooker left in 2019 though so there is no need to go too mad on a card which isn’t yielding a great number of bets.
The one I’m interested in comes in the morning session where I think Andrew Higginson is a touch of value to see off Lu Haotian, who is having an awful time of it this term. I thought the Chinese ace was turning the corner at the UK Championship but it was a false dawn. He has just three wins since the Riga Masters at the beginning of the season and he hasn’t beaten anyone inside the top 95 of the rankings in those matches. Not only is Higginson ranked higher but he has wins over Jack Lisowski, Tom Ford and Jimmy Robertson this season and even in recent defeats he has scored well. I think he’s a nice price to take care of the Chinese youngster.
Tips
WON – Back A.Higginson to beat L.Haotian for a 4/10 stake at 2.20 with Betway
Back him here:
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