We are nearing the end of the first stage of the Championship League Snooker tournament and two more groups take place inside the Mattioli Arena on Saturday when eight more players open up their campaign in Leicester.
Saturday is a day where we have a top 16 player headlining the action on the main table while on the other one we have a competitive looking group so if you load up one of the streams you shouldn’t be disappointed with what is on offer.
Group 4
Fixtures
Si Jiahui vs Kayden Brierley
Artemijs Zizins vs Farakh Ajaib
Artemijs Zizins vs Kayden Brierley
Si Jiahui vs Farakh Ajaib
Farakh Ajaib vs Kayden Brierley
Si Jiahui vs Artemijs Zizins
Preview
The headline act on the main table on Saturday is the former World Championship semi-finalist Si Jiahui who will be looking to push on and get his season up and running with some good form ahead of the events in China to come over the next few weeks. He will be expected to dominate a group where the talented Latvian player Artemijs Zizins is the second seed. He has plenty of talent but he is still relatively young in his professional career and this feels a lofty position for him. Farakh Ajaib will be looking to take advantage of that from the third seed slot in this group but even the amateur Kayden Brierley would fancy his chances of being competitive in behind the Chinese star.
Group 30
Fixtures
Ben Woollaston vs Iulian Boiko
Robbie Williams vs Florian Nuessle
Robbie Williams vs Iulian Boiko
Ben Woollaston vs Florian Nuessle
Florian Nuessle vs Iulian Boiko
Ben Woollaston vs Robbie Williams
Preview
The action over on table two looks very competitive, not least because it is a rare group in this tournament which doesn’t contain an amateur player. Ben Woollaston is the leading seed in it and he’ll be looking to make progress on home soil although this doesn’t look the easiest group he could have been given. Robbie Williams is a perfectly solid second seed and could be considered as one of the better second seeds in the competition and he’ll fancy his chances of going well here. There is a case to be made that the third seed Florian Nuessle is the weakest player in the group but his ranking gets him in a higher position than Iulian Boiko who is new to the tour. The Ukrainian player is very talented though and you would expect him to have a better day than the Austrian at least.
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Betting
There is one bet which stands out to me over the course of Saturday and it comes fairly early on in the action on the main table. It sees Artemijs Zizins going up against Farakh Ajaib where I am amazed that we can get even money on the Latvian player. These two met in the qualifying competition for the Welsh Open last season and Zizins won 4-0 so he has fairly recent history of coming out on top between the two and there is no reason to think that can’t happen again.
Zizins has already thrashed He Guoqiang 5-1 to qualify for the Wuhan Open this season and while he would have been disappointed to lose to Bai Yulu in the British Open qualifying, he missed a maximum attempt on 105 in the match so he clearly didn’t play badly. Ajaib has only played one match this term which he lost 4-0 to Guoqiang in British Open qualifying so we have a direct form guide from just a couple of weeks ago to use here. I expect the more talented Zizins to get the job done here.
Tips
Back A.Zizins to beat F.Ajaib for a 3/10 stake at 2.00 with Betway
