The opening day of the World Open in China sees the wildcard round and the matches held over from the qualifying round being played as well as some big names looking to make it into the second round from the smattering of first round matches being played across the three sessions on the day.
Among those in action in the various rounds being played on Monday are Ding Junhui, Shaun Murphy, Mark Selby, Liang Wenbo, Barry Hawkins and Stephen Maguire while the Indian Open champion Anthony McGill gets his quest for a second successive title underway.
Early Session
This session sees the four wildcard round matches being played along with a held over game featuring Liang Wenbo and three first round games including Stuart Bingham against Stuart Carrington and Stephen Maguire versus Xiao Guodong.
It is the nature of the beast that one of these wildcards will come past the qualified player. It seems to happen in every event but I’ve given up trying to guess where it will happen so I’m going to leave those matches alone.
Of the other matches in the session there isn’t really a bet I like so I will skip these ones and keep my powder dry for matches later in the day.
Morning Session
One more qualifying round match takes place in this session when Mark Selby takes on Jimmy White on one of the two televised tables. The other televised match sees Marco Fu taking on Sam Craigie in the first round and there are six other first round games.
The pick of those in terms of ranking is Tom Ford against Mark Davis while Anthony McGill versus Lee Walker is another game which should get more attention than it is getting. Kyren Wilson and Dave Gilbert also take to the baize in this session too.
I’ve had a good look at the session but keen not to go too mad on the opening day there isn’t a bet I like in this session. I came close to taking McGill to cover 2.5 frames but handicaps on the opening day of tournaments are rarely my thing so I’ll give it a miss.
Afternoon Session
The final two qualifying round matches take place in this session which means we have Shaun Murphy and Ding Junhui on the televised tables. Murphy takes on Sanderson Lam and Ding Junhui takes on Michael Georgiou. Both should come through those matches but the prices reflect that.
There are five other matches on Monday with Mark Williams and Barry Hawkins headlining them. Williams faces Andrew Higginson while Hawkins goes up against Robbie Williams. Again both should win but I’m already on Mark Williams outright so I can leave his game alone and Robbie Williams is dangerous enough to avoid.
I am going to get involved in the other two matches where Michael White takes on Kurt Maflin and Jamie Cope faces Alan McManus. I took on Michael White in the first round of the Indian Open earlier in the month and I’m going to do it again hopefully with the same outcome.
White doesn’t look up for the fight to me at the minute. If he gets an easy ride he’ll take it but if he has to battle or come from behind I’m not convinced he has it in him to do it yet. The one thing we know about Kurt Maflin is if he gets the chances he will capitalise on them.
I don’t expect too much safety in this match but when all is said and done I think the man with the fewer mistakes and the more solid scoring will be the Norwegian so I’m with Maflin there.
In the other match I was really surprised to see that Jamie Cope has won all four meetings against Alan McManus and with that in mind at just under 2/1 I have to take him in their meeting on Monday. McManus finished last season really well but he’s already lost to Cope in Riga Masters qualifying just last month and given the record between the two the case for Cope isn’t hard to make.
Tips
WON – Back K.Maflin to beat M.White for a 4/10 stake at 2.50 with Bet365
Back him here:
Back J.Cope to beat A.McManus for a 3/10 stake at 2.88 with Coral
Back him here:
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