The second day of the English Open sees the first round of the main draw being completed on a Tuesday where we have another three sessions of action inside the Brentwood Centre as the opening Home Nations event of the year continues at a fair speed.
Those who weren’t in action from the top 32 on the first day on Monday will take to the baize on Tuesday looking to pick up the four frames that they need to make it through to the last 32 of the tournament.
Morning Session
As is usually the case in these Home Nations events, we have one set of matches in the morning session and on this occasion there will just be the two main tables in operation. Gary Wilson is the headline act in the morning as the reigning Scottish Open and Welsh Open winner will begin his quest to add the English Open trophy to his collection when he faces Ross Muir. The other match in the morning might be a better watch as Hossein Vafaei goes up against a Matthew Stevens who is going to need to scrap for the remainder of the season to keep his place on tour.
Afternoon Session
We have two sets of matches in the afternoon with a full slate in both of them. The former world number one Mark Allen will be the main draw in the first part of the session when he takes on the Chinese player Long Zehuang while Tom Ford will look to pick up a rare win on the season when he meets Jiang Jun. The other two matches are between players very close to each other in the world rankings as Matthew Selt faces Ricky Walden while Lyu Haotian opens up his campaign against the veteran Dominic Dale.
Mark Williams will be the one with all eyes on him in the second part of the afternoon. The Welshman was a couple of pots away from winning the Saudi Arabia Snooker Masters a couple of weeks ago and landing the £500,000 which went with it. It will be interesting to see how he reacts to that when he takes on Ben Woollaston. This is a really good session actually because Barry Hawkins is also on show when he faces Jimmy Robertson while Neil Robertson meets Jackson Page in one of the more appealing matches in the round. The other match has Stephen Maguire facing Bulcsu Revesz.
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Evening Session
We have a full set of games to begin the evening session with the home star Ronnie O’Sullivan being the centre of attention. He will be on the main table when he takes on He Guoqiang who will be looking for the ultimate upset. John Higgins is the other star on show in the first part of the evening. He meets Andrew Higginson while on the two outside tables Zhou Yuelong goes up against Jamie Jones and Anthony McGill takes on Xiao Guodong.
The first round concludes with just the two main tables in operation in the second part of the evening with the former world champion Luca Brecel on the TV table. He takes on Anthony Hamilton who will fancy his chances given the lack of form of the Belgian while on the other table Jack Lisowski will look for a win which will push him closer to a return to the top 16 when he goes up against a Xu Si who had to come through a deciding frame in his qualifying match.
Betting
Two bets jump off the page at me on Tuesday and the first comes in opposing Tom Ford who has had a disastrous start to the season. He pulled out of the Championship League on medical grounds and I don’t know if there is something lingering but he has won just one match which was against Stan Moody in the qualifying for the Xi’an Grand Prix but since then he has gone down to world no120 Sunny Akani in the Wuhan Open qualifying and world no105 Gong Chenzhi when he got to Xi’an and I think he is vulnerable to another Asian talent in Jiang Jun. In an ideal world Ford would be playing someone better than Jun but at world no76 he is better than two players the Englishman has lost to. Jiang has won two matches in the qualifying competition for this in this venue and he made centuries in both games so he must be hitting the ball very well and the 2/1 on him to add to Ford’s woes feels slightly overpriced.
The other bet is to oppose Luca Brecel. I watched Brecel in Saudi Arabia and he didn’t look interested in a tournament which had more money than any other apart from the World Championship. If the Belgian wasn’t interested in that I don’t see why the English Open would float his boat when relative peanuts are up for grabs. The 2023 world champion is yet to win a match this season and I’m not convinced he’ll beat Anthony Hamilton either. The Sheriff has a decent record against Brecel, leading their previous meetings 5-2 and it wouldn’t be a surprise if a reason for that is the slower pace that Hamilton plays at. The other reason might be because when Hamilton is left in the balls he generally fills his boots and the aggressive style of Brecel can leave himself exposed to that. Hamilton is scrapping hard to stay on tour and he can take advantage of a Brecel who looks very loose at the minute.
Tips
Back J.Jun to beat T.Ford for a 3/10 stake at 3.00 with Bet365
Back A.Hamilton to beat L.Brecel for a 3/10 stake at 2.75 with Bet365
