The first round of the World Grand Prix comes to an end in Coventry on Wednesday and the second round gets underway as the opening event of the Cazoo Series begins to heat up nicely as we continue the final tournament of 2021.
We’ve seen one or two shocks so far this week but a number of big names have made it through the first round already and a lot of them come back on Wednesday looking to make further progress in the tournament.
Afternoon Session
This session sees the conclusion of the opening round of the tournament and the TV action starts with Ronnie O’Sullivan beginning his latest quest for a first title since his sixth world crown 17 months ago. He takes on the UK Championship quarter finalist Andy Hicks in a veteran clash. When they are done the newly crowned Scottish Open champion Luca Brecel is up on show. He is the second seed this week and goes up against the Welsh Open winner Jordan Brown. Backing up a big win is never easy so all eyes will be on Brecel here.
Over on the other table there is a very competitive looking afternoon session which gets underway with the British Open finalist Gary Wilson on show. He takes on a Hossein Vafaei who has emphatic wins over Ronnie O’Sullivan and Mark Selby on his ledger this year and who will be hoping to go deep here. When they are done the man who knocked Judd Trump out of the UK Championship will be up when Matt Selt takes on the semi-finalist from the British Open in Jimmy Robertson.
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Evening Session
The second round of the tournament gets going in the evening session when the top half of the draw plays down to the quarter final stage. There is a proper good schedule for the main table in this session when the defending champion Judd Trump opens up the evening. He faces Tom Ford who has already dumped John Higgins out of this event and will be looking for another decent scalp. When they are done Mark Allen will go in search of a big win when he takes on the world champion Mark Selby in a real heavyweight clash.
The other table is full of quality in the evening session as well. That gets underway with The Masters champion Yan Bingtao looking to make another quarter final. Martin Gould has already taken out one Chinese youngster in Zhao Xintong and will look to double down against Bingtao. When they are done the English Open champion Neil Robertson will have a rare outing on the second table. He meets Anthony Hamilton who had a good win over Kyren Wilson in the previous round and looks to be hitting the cue ball well.
Betting
I’ll go with a couple of bets over the course of the day looking to add to the three wins I’ve had already this week. The first of them comes right off the bat with Hossein Vafaei taking on Gary Wilson in a match I fancy the Iranian to come out on top in. I say that because I’ve watched a fair bit of Wilson recently having backed him for the Scottish Open and he looks disinterested in the game again. He was beaten by Fergal O’Brien in the Scottish in a match he didn’t play overly well in and in one frame he chased five snookers and another he conceded needing two so his mindset doesn’t seem right. He has spoken in the past about how he hates the game and with this run of tournaments recently he might just be burned out. Vafaei has no such issue. He loves the game and is always looking to improve and his big breakthrough isn’t far away you feel. He can beat anyone in the game, as he has shown this season, but just needs to put consecutive wins together. Vafaei scores pretty well and knows his way around the table and I think he can see off a Wilson who might not fancy the job here.
I’ll also take Mark Allen to see off Mark Selby in the big match in the evening session. Allen has a decent recent record against Selby with their exception of their last meeting at the World Championship but Allen would always be a sitting duck to the world champion over that distance. That certainly isn’t the case in a best of seven and Selby didn’t overly impress me even though the score was impressive against Barry Hawkins in the first round. I don’t think Allen will cough up the chances that Hawkins spurned and Selby isn’t really playing well overall anyway. He talks as though he is practicing well but his last few tournaments he has looked indifferent to me. He also has this terrible record on ITV which will be in his mind now because everyone keeps bringing it up. Allen is having plenty of well-documented issues away from the table but in the main they haven’t distracted him on it and I think he’s in the better form of the two here.
Tips
Back H.Vafaei to beat G.Wilson for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with William Hill
Back him here:
Back M.Allen to beat M.Selby for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with BetVictor
Back him here:
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