The entire second round of the English Open takes place across the three sessions of action inside the Brentwood Centre on Wednesday as we move a little closer to determining who will get their hands on the Steve Davis Trophy on Sunday.
We saw Ronnie O’Sullivan bomb out of the tournament on Tuesday night but without too many other shocks in the previous round we have some tasty ties awaiting us both on the main table and elsewhere on Wednesday.
Morning Session
As was the case on Tuesday, we open up the day with just the two matches in the morning session with the pick of them being the one between the former winner of this tournament, Mark Selby, and his rival from Leicester in Joe O’Connor. That match will be on the main table while over on the other big table the finalist from The Masters earlier in the year, Ali Carter, will be on show. Wu Yize is a dangerous challenger who will be looking to take care of the Captain.
Afternoon Session
We have two sets of matches in the afternoon session of the day with the first of them being headlined by the defending champion Judd Trump. He takes on his pal Matthew Selt in what is a tricky test for the world number one. Si Jiahui will be on the second table in this session when he goes up against his countryman Jiang Jun who had two centuries in his first round win over Tom Ford on Tuesday. Ben Woollaston is back on the baize in this session looking to back up his win over Mark Williams on Tuesday. Zak Surety is his opponent. The other match sees Fan Zhengyi taking on Oliver Lines in a big match for both men.
The world champion Kyren Wilson will head up the second part of the afternoon when he goes up against Anthony McGill in what will be a repeat of an epic World Championship semi-final of a few years ago. John Higgins is also on show in the latter bit of the afternoon when he meets Dave Gilbert in what should be a great game. Jamie Jones has made it into the last 32 and he will face Ross Muir with the other afternoon match seeing Luca Brecel going up against Pang Junxu for a spot in the last 16 of the event.
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Evening Session
The former world number one Mark Allen will open up the evening session on the main table. He goes up against Lyu Haotian. We have a full slate of games over the course of the first part of the evening and on the other main table Zhang Anda will continue his quest to go one better than he did last year when he meets Chris Wakelin. Stephen Maguire is another player on show in the opening part of the evening. He meets the man who took care of Ronnie O’Sullivan in He Guoqiang while the other match sees Hossein Vafaei taking on Ishpreet Singh Chadha.
That leaves us with two matches for the second part of the evening and on the main table we have a blockbuster clash which in previous seasons could easily have been a final as Shaun Murphy meets a Neil Robertson who has fallen down the rankings so far that this contest is taking place in the last 32. The other match will be on the second main table and it will see a Barry Hawkins who is desperate for wins to get back into the top 16 in the world rankings. He faces Xu Si who played really well to get rid of Jack Lisowski in the previous round.
Betting
I like just the one bet over the course of the day on Wednesday and we have to wait right until the end of it. I had noted the scoring form of Xu Si and almost took him to beat Jack Lisowski on Tuesday but preferred the two bets that I put up over him but I’m not going to ignore him against Barry Hawkins. We all know Hawkins isn’t the best starter to a season although he did reach the quarter final in the Xi’an Grand Prix, although it has to be said he had a walkover in the first game so only won two matches to get to that stage.
Xu Si had another two centuries in his match against Lisowski and that took his tally for the season to 10 and he has had four 80s and three 90s so when he is left in the balls he is making full use of it. Hawkins is the man under pressure in this one because he has fallen out of the top 16 and there is a reason why he has dropped out, because he hasn’t been getting results. Xu Si looked a confident man on Tuesday and when you consider he now has wins over Stuart Bingham, Mark Williams and Lisowski this season I think he has shown he is good enough to make the 17/10 quotes on him look a little big.
Tips
Back X.Si to beat B.Hawkins for a 3/10 stake at 2.70 with Betfred
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