The first round of the UK Championship begins at the Barbican Centre in York on Tuesday with two sessions of action over the course of what should be an entertaining beginning to the first Triple Crown event of the season.
This round of the tournament never used to be televised but Eurosport have changed all that and there is coverage of it now so on what looks like a chilly day there is at least some TV snooker to keep us warm.
Afternoon Session
For the opening couple of rounds in this tournament there are four matches on tables that have coverage and four with no coverage at all. The main man on show in the first session on Tuesday is Kyren Wilson. He’ll be looking to make it through to the second round at the expense of Soheil Vahedi. Anthony McGill will be on the second table and he takes on the youngster from Ukraine in the form of Iulian Boiko. Zhou Yuelong is also on one of the TV tables when he meets his countryman Chen Zifan and it is two other Chinese players on the other streamed table. That sees Lu Ning meeting Wu Yize.
There are some good matches which don’t have the coverage on them in this session too. Jak Jones meets Oliver Lines in a clash between two players who have had good seasons. Andrew Higginson hasn’t had the best campaign so far but he’ll look to take advantage of an out of form Mark Joyce while the former semi-finalist David Grace has a date with Peter Devlin. The other match sees Dominic Dale taking on Ashley Carty.
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Evening Session
This evening session is absolutely loaded with talent. John Higgins will be on the main table. He meets the former professional Michael Georgiou who gets in here as a top-up player. Shaun Murphy will be on the supporting table. The world finalist goes up against an amateur too in the form of Si Jiahui. Stephen Maguire will occupy one of the other streamed tables. He too meets an amateur in the form of Sanderson Lam while Tom Ford takes on Andrew Pagett on one of the other streamed tables.
Scott Donaldson could do with a big week and that will begin against the lowly ranked Farakh Ajaib while Mark Davis will look to make progress when he takes on Ashley Hugill. Mitchell Mann was a quarter finalist in the Northern Ireland Open and he’ll look to cause what would be something of a surprise against Li Hang. The other match taking place over the course of the day sees Chris Wakelin facing Jamie Clarke in a clash which could go either way.
Betting
I’ll open up the tournament with just the one bet which comes in the form of Ashley Carty to beat Dominic Dale. I thought the time was coming where Dale might not be as competitive at this level as he once was and I think we are there now. He has only won one match all season and while that was a good one against Xiao Guodong, it was over the best of five at the British Open so I’m not sure what sort of a form guide that is. He has lost all five matches since then.
Carty has only failed to qualify for two of the tournaments this season. In one of those he lost to Mark Selby and in the other he went down in a deciding frame to Hammad Miah. That was probably his only poor result of the campaign though. This is a season where he has already beaten Jordan Brown and Stephen Maguire and he has run Kyren Wilson and Stuart Bingham close. He is playing much better than Dominic Dale this term so I’m very surprised we can get 6/4 on a Carty win here. I’m happy to be on though.
Tips
Back A.Carty to beat D.Dale for a 3/10 stake at 2.50 with Betfair
Back him here:
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