The entire round of 16 is on the menu for us at the International Championship on Wednesday and by the end of the day we will know the eight players who will compete in the quarter final of the biggest Chinese ranking event.
We lost the likes of Ronnie O’Sullivan on Tuesday while a couple of other big names needed to really battle to make it through but we have a decent line up on Wednesday, although there is just one match between top 16 players with this the first round that they can collide.
Afternoon Session
Four matches take place in the afternoon session and it will be the world number one Judd Trump who is the main man on show. The Shanghai Masters and Saudi Masters winner will go up against one of the six home players still in the competition in the form of Xu Si. Mark Williams is the second highest player in terms of the rankings on show in this session. He will meet the former Shootout winner Chris Wakelin. The other two matches both contain Chinese players with Pang Junxu looking to follow up his win over Ronnie O’Sullivan when he takes on Jackson Page while the other game in the afternoon sees Lyu Haotian facing John Higgins.
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Evening Session
The world champion Kyren Wilson continues his quest for a second successive ranking event title and a third on the season when he headlines the evening session. He meets Barry Hawkins who thrashed Neil Robertson in the previous round. The Chinese superstar Ding Junhui is also on show in the later part of the day when he faces his compatriot Jiang Jun. The pick of the matches in this session could well be the one between Jack Lisowski and the Wuhan Open champion Xiao Guodong while the final match on show will see Mark Selby looking to make another quarter final in a ranking event when he takes on Gary Wilson.
Betting
Xiao Guodong is playing some really good snooker at the minute and I’m a little surprised that given that he has recently won a ranking event that he isn’t favourite to beat Jack Lisowski. I like Lisowski but you sense he is always going to err on the side of dying by the sword and against someone as solid as Guodong that might not be a method that is going to work. To be fair to Lisowski, he just beat Si Jiahui but he had to really battle and this tournament comes thick and fast.
Guodong has had a couple of very comfortable wins in this tournament and the more energy that a player can save as we go along the better he is going to be. It isn’t like Guodong has had an easy draw either. He has beaten Ricky Walden and Mark Allen in this event so far and they both have a good pedigree. It is clear that Guodong is hitting the ball sweetly. He scored brilliantly in the Wuhan Open and his safety game is generally pretty good and I’ll ride the hot cue and take Guodong here.
Tips
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