The second round of the Welsh Open concludes and the entire third round of the last Home Nations event of the season takes place inside Venue Cymru in Llandudno on Thursday, as by the end of the day we will know the eight men who will compete in the quarter finals.
We’ve had no shortage of shocks and surprises in this tournament so far so it will be interesting to see if that continues on Thursday or whether the cream rises to the top and the leading lights left in make it through to the quarter finals.
Afternoon Session
The Welsh artillery in this tournament are dwindling in numbers but one remaining Welsh player will be on show on the main table in the first part of the afternoon when Dominic Dale goes up against arguably the best young player on the circuit in Stan Moody. There are two other Welsh players on show in the first set of afternoon matches with Jak Jones one of them. He beat Zhang Anda on Wednesday and will be looking to take care of another Asian player on Thursday when he meets Hossein Vafaei. Daniel Wells is the other Welsh player. He has a tricky looking test against Marco Fu to overcome. The other match sees Anthony Hamilton, who had a good win over Kyren Wilson in the last round, taking on Martin O’Donnell.
The second part of the afternoon will see the world champion Luca Brecel looking to make the last 16 when he goes up against the former winner of that title in Graeme Dott. That is one good match in the latter segment of the session and the other one sees Barry Hawkins taking on Tom Ford in a clash in which the winner will really fancy their chances of a deep run. Dylan Emery will look to continue his progress in his home tournament when he takes on Elliot Slessor while Aaron Hill will look to build on a good win over Mark Selby in the previous round when he meets Fan Zhengyi.
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Evening Session
The entire last 16 of the tournament will be played out across two sets of matches in the evening session. We know the full line-up for the first part of the session with two current Hone Nations events holders playing out the pick of the games when the defending champion Robert Milkins meets the Scottish Open winner Gary Wilson. Mark Allen is the highest ranked player on show in the first bit of the evening. He faces Robbie Williams for a spot in the quarter final while two men who took care of top 16 players in the last round will take on each other when Anthony McGill plays Ricky Walden. The other game sees John Higgins taking on Matt Selt in another good looking match.
Later in the evening the players who competed in the afternoon will be back looking for spots in the quarter final. One match will see the winner of the game between Luca Brecel and Graeme Dott taking on the player who comes out on top when Barry Hawkins faces Tom Ford. There will be a huge chance for someone down the rankings to make the last eight when whoever comes out on top between Anthony Hamilton and Martin O’Donnell faces the winner of Marco Fu and Daniel Wells. One of Dominic Dale or Stan Moody will face either Jak Jones or Hossein Vafaei while the winners of Dylan Emery and Elliot Slessor and Fan Zhengyi and Aaron Hill will also meet.
Betting
There isn’t a massive amount that I like over the course of Thursday but after a couple of big priced winners on Wednesday there is no need to push the boat out and take anything that I don’t fancy so with that in mind I’ll go with the one bet. That comes in the form of Stan Moody to beat Dominic Dale at a nice price. To be fair to Dale he is having a decent enough season and won’t be short of motivation on home soil but he is part of the BBC Wales team this week and that sort of thing is always going to turn me off as a punter.
Moody had a good win in the previous round against the former winner Jordan Brown where he made a couple of nice breaks and generally looked in decent order against an opponent motivated by former glories in this event. Dale looked bang average and you have to say he fell over the line against Alfie Davies, who visibly weakened when the finish line arrived. Moody has the confidence, status and enough big stage experience to not do that should it come his way and at 13/10 I think he is too big.
Tips
Back S.Moody to beat D.Dale for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with 888sport
Back him here:
