The first round of the Northern Ireland Open concludes on Wednesday and we begin the second round of the latest Home Nations event as the action begins to hot up inside the Waterfront Hall out in Belfast.
The big names continue to fall by the wayside in this tournament but the ones who remain will see a huge opportunity in front of them to go deep in a ranking event and set themselves up for the competitions to come.
Morning Session
It is a relatively low key morning session on Wednesday with Dave Gilbert the headline attraction in it. He will be on the main table when he takes on a Matthew Stevens who is searching for some good form coming into a busy part of the season. Zhang Anda is already in that rich vein of form and the English Open finalist will look to continue that when he faces Rory Thor. The other match sees the Thai number one Noppon Saengkham facing the amateur Barry Pinches, who took advantage of his invite to come through qualifying.
Afternoon Session
The British Open champion Mark Williams is the main draw in the first of the two sets of matches in the afternoon on Wednesday. The Welsh player will face off against his namesake Robbie Williams in a clash on the main table. Hossein Vafaei is also on show in the earlier part of the afternoon. He will go up against the Ukrainian player Anton Kazakov while two of the better youngsters in the game will also face off when Aaron Hill looks to continue some good recent form when he meets Dylan Emery.
Such has been the level of big names who have exited the tournament already the honour of leading the action on the main table in the second part of the afternoon goes to the Scottish Open champion Gary Wilson. He will take on the exciting youngster Stan Moody for a place in the last 16. The Shootout winner Chris Wakelin is also on show in this part of the day. English Open quarter finalist Martin O’Donnell is his opponent while two lower ranked players have a huge chance to make the last 16 of a ranking event in the other game as Andres Petrov takes on Xing Zihao.
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Evening Session
Spots in the last 16 are up for grabs in the evening session as well and Shaun Murphy will be the highest ranked player looking to make it there in the opening part of the action and he will take on Sean O’Sullivan who is enjoying a good run this week. Two experienced campaigners will face each other for a spot in the last 16 when Ricky Walden takes on Stuart Bingham while in the other game the home crowds will be behind Jordan Brown when he goes up against Yuan Sijun.
Jack Lisowski will head up the second part of the evening. The exciting Englishman will be hoping this is the week he gets the monkey of having never won a tournament off his back but he faces an awkward test against Matt Selt who is hitting the ball well. Two very capable players meet on one of the other tables when Stephen Maguire faces a Sam Craigie who didn’t come through the previous round until the early hours of Wednesday morning. Jak Jones takes on the amateur Rory McLeod in the other game.
Betting
I’ll head to the evening session for a bet on these matches and I like Stephen Maguire at what I would consider fair odds at 4/5 to beat Sam Craigie rather than insane value but at the end of the day and winner is a winner regardless of value. Craigie was playing into the early hours of the morning on Wednesday in overcoming Hammad Miah but had Miah taken the chances he was given then Craigie need not have worried about what time that match finished.
Miah didn’t put Craigie away but afforded the same opportunities I would expect Maguire to do just that. He must know that only Judd Trump and Barry Hawkins remain in his half of the draw from the top 16 and as a result he has a huge chance to revive his career here. Maguire has actually made three tons and an 80 in this competition so far so he is certainly scoring well enough and I think a jaded Craigie could be ripe to be exploited in this one.
Tips
Back S.Maguire to beat S.Craigie for a 3/10 stake at 1.80 with Unibet
