The final day of the German Masters qualifying competition takes place inside the behind closed doors setup at the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes on Saturday and by the end of the day we will know the 32 men who will break off in the main draw in Berlin in January.
We’ve seen plenty of big names exit already so those who are in action on Saturday have certainly had enough warnings to make sure they are at their best if they want to pick up the win they need to book a flight on the plane to Germany.
Morning Session
Once again we have six matches in the morning session of which four will be played out in front of the streaming cameras. The one with the biggest name on show is the match between Stuart Bingham and Ricky Walden. Former finalist Luca Brecel is on another of the streamed tables when he meets Andrew Higginson while on the other two main tables Martin O’Donnell will go up against Robbie Williams and Zhou Yuelong will be looking to make another main draw when he takes on Peter Devlin.
That leaves two matches away from the streaming cameras and one of them features a former ranking event winner as Jimmy Robertson goes up against the talented Chinese player Yuan Sijun who dumped Dave Gilbert out in the first round of qualifying. The other match sees Mark Joyce, who saw off Thepchaiya Un-Nooh earlier in the competition, going up against Sohail Vahedi in what might be the toughest match of the session to call.
Afternoon Session
John Higgins is the main attraction in the afternoon session of the final day. He takes on Ashley Hugill in one of the four matches to be played out on the live streams. Elsewhere the World Championship semi-finalist Anthony McGill is also in action when he takes on Joe O’Connor while Ryan Day takes on the man who beat Mark Williams in the first round in Paul Davison. The other streamed match will see the Shootout winner Michael Holt taking on Stuart Carrington and then in the match away from the limelight Fergal O’Brien will look to deny the German star Simon Lichtenberg a place in the main draw of his home tournament.
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Evening Session
The newly crowned Champion of Champions winner Mark Allen is the star attraction in the final session of this qualifying event. He meets the Chinese player Pang Junxu on one of the streamed tables while on another Tom Ford meets Liam Highfield. Jack Lisowski is another top name on show and he will face off against Brandon Sargeant for a place in the main draw in Berlin. The other streamed offering sees Ben Woollaston looking to back up his good win over Neil Robertson in the previous round when he takes on Noppon Saengkham. The other match away from the streams sees Louis Heathcote facing Nigel Bond.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the day on Saturday with the first of them coming in the shape of Jimmy Robertson who I think can come past the challenge of the Chinese player Yuan Sijun. It was expected that Sijun would have been making big waves in the game by now after the way he burst onto the scene but that hasn’t really happened in truth. He seems to lack what it takes to get past the better players and I’m not sure he’ll get much change out of Robertson here. Since he won the European Masters a few years ago Robertson hasn’t really done a whole lot but it tends to take someone pretty good to beat him. He hasn’t reached that stage of the tournament yet so at odds against I’ll take the seasoned player over a hit or miss up and comer.
We have youth against experience in the other match I’m betting on for this final day of action which sees Louis Heathcote taking on Nigel Bond in the evening session in a clash where this time I’m going for the younger player. Heathcote is highly rated and he showed glimpses of why in the first round and I expect the confidence he has from that win and performance to lead him to another victory here. Bond is still pretty competitive which is some feat given how long he’s been around for but there aren’t many frames where he doesn’t need a few chances to get over the line so if Heathcote has his scoring boots on he should be good enough to come through here.
Tips
Back J.Robertson to beat Y.Sijun for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betfair
Back him here:
WON – Back L.Heathcote to beat N.Bond for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
Back him here: