It is a busy day at the British Open on Thursday as the third round of the tournament comes to a close in the afternoon and the last 16 of the event is played out in full inside the Marshall Arena in Milton Keynes in the evening.
The draw has been done for the last 16 but only two matches have been determined ahead of play beginning on Thursday so time restrictions will stop us from previewing that round. We can look at the remaining third round matches in the afternoon though where there are two sets of games.
Opening Matches
The afternoon begins with four matches with the attention on the TV table being taken up by the UK Championship and German Masters winner from last season in Zhao Xintong. He meets fellow Asian player Noppon Saengkham who almost made a maximum in the last round in what should be a great match. Ding Junhui looked good on the main table on Wednesday and his reward is a clash on table two against Robbie Williams. The other two matches in the first set of games sees Jimmy Robertson going up against Ryan Day and Craig Steadman going up against Matthew Stevens.
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Later Matches
The world finalist Judd Trump will take centre stage in the later set of matches when he occupies the TV table once again. He is five wins from a return to world number one and the first of those will need to be against the Chinese player Xu Si. The best looking match in this slot of games is the one which will be on table two as the classy Mark Allen meets the man who lost out in the final here last year in Gary Wilson. Yan Bingtao is also on show in this set of games when he takes on the former Welsh Open champion Jordan Brown while the other game sees Zhao Jianbo taking on Yuan Sijun.
Betting
There is only one bet I like in the afternoon matches on Thursday and it comes in the clash between Jimmy Robertson and Ryan Day. Robertson seems to like ITV events as he made the last four in two of them last season, including here where he lost out to the eventual champion Mark Williams, and there are signs that he has picked up where he left off because his win over Tian Pengfei earlier in the week contained some good scoring. He cut a confident figure when he did his post-match interview too.
Day hung around at the top level when he won the Shootout a couple of seasons ago but those points come off soon and he’ll be struggling for his place in the bigger events as a result of that. His form has flattered to deceive really and a man who is usually such a heavy scorer when he is going well failed to make a single 50 in the win over Gerard Greene earlier in the week. Day made three quarter finals last season but you’d expect more from him. I think he’s regressing whereas Robertson is revived in the game and I think the Englishman wins this as a result.
Tips
Back J.Robertson to beat R.Day for a 3/10 stake at 1.91 with William Hill
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