The first round of the World Championship continues inside the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield on Sunday when four matches play to a close and two more embark on their journey on another good looking day of action.
We saw some big names on show on Saturday and on Sunday there will be three world champions taking to the baize as well as another two players who have competed in the final of this great event, so the quality will be high.
Day 1 Recap
Ronnie O’Sullivan got the defence of his title underway in the only match to start and finish on the opening day of the tournament. The seven-time winner of this event came through relatively unscathed against a game Pang Junxu, eventually winning 10-7 having been 5-0 up at one point. It is all to play for in the other four matches that begun though. Stuart Bingham leads Dave Gilbert 6-3 after winning the last five frames on Saturday morning while Luca Brecel and Neil Robertson have the same advantage over Ricky Walden and Wu Yize. Things are a little tighter in the Ali Carter and Jak Jones match with the latter holding a 5-4 overnight advantage.
In Play Betting
One of the best things about betting on this tournament is we get the chance in a number of cases to watch the first session of matches and assess where we are and then see if any bets arise in them. We have four matches at the halfway mark heading into Sunday but I’m not sure there is much in terms of betting potential. The two men who are behind who I think could overturn their deficits I’m on in outright bets and in the case of Ricky Walden I’m on him to win his match already. I expect Neil Robertson to convert his lead but I already have a bet on him and while I expect Ali Carter to come through I’m no fan of backing odds on shots when they are behind. I’ll leave the in play stuff alone for Sunday.
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Ding Junhui vs Hossein Vafaei (Sunday 10am & Monday 10am)
The first of the two matches to begin on Sunday sees two of the finest from Asia battling it out when Ding Junhui takes on one of the qualifiers that the seeds wanted to avoid in Hossein Vafaei, with Ronnie O’Sullivan waiting for the winner in the second round.
This looked like one of the more appealing matches in the opening round when the draw was made and I expect to see a really good match between two players who like to be aggressive in the balls and who are both capable of playing some really good snooker when they are at their best. We saw Ding at his best at the Tour Championship while Vafaei looked in good order at the qualifiers so I’m expecting both to perform strongly here. We know that Ding is one of the heaviest scorers in the game but Vafaei can mix it as well and he has made a ton in both of the matches he has played against Ding in their career. Betway have the Vafaei high break line at 109.5 for this match and I think that is on the low side for a man who is as aggressive a break builder as he is.
Mark Williams vs Jimmy Robertson (Sunday 2.30pm & Monday 2.30pm)
The other match to begin on Sunday does so in the afternoon session when Mark Williams sets off in search of a fourth world title when he takes on a man who he must think he is going to beat every time he plays him in Jimmy Robertson.
These two have met on nine previous occasions and it is Williams who has won the lot. That is emphatic enough but in those matches he has won 46 frames to just the 13 of Robertson and that highlights exactly how dominant the Welshman is in this battle. One of their matches was here in this round in 2018 when Williams won 10-5 and I suspect we’ll get a similar result here. Williams is very comfortable in these surroundings whereas Robertson isn’t really and although he has been here in the past he has never won a match at the Crucible. I don’t see him winning this one and the history tells us that if Williams is on his game Robertson will do well to win more than six frames.
Tips
Back H.Vafaei – Over 109.5 break for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Betway
Back M.Williams (-3.5 frames) to beat J.Robertson for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
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