The penultimate day of the English Open qualifying competition takes place on Saturday when another 16 players head to the Morningside Arena looking for the four frames they need to book their spot in the main draw.
Given that the top 16 players in the rankings have had their qualifying match held over to the main venue we have to wait for the real big names to enter the event but some decent names will be on the baize on Saturday nevertheless.
Morning Session
Two matches take place in the morning session on Saturday, as they do in all of the sessions throughout the day and it will be Xiao Guodong who is the leading player in terms of the rankings in the first session. He goes up against the veteran Mark Davis while over on the other table Ng On Yee will be looking to make it through to the main draw. She takes on a John Astley who had a decent enough run in Northern Ireland last week and will be looking to build on that.
Early Afternoon Session
The highest ranked player on show on the day will take to the baize in the first of the two afternoon sessions when Stephen Maguire plays the match which he hopes will lead to the final stages of the competition. He will go up against Zhang Anda in what is a trickier assignment than he might have wanted. The other match offers up the chance for two of the lesser lights to book a spot at the main venue when Andres Petrov goes up against the Brazilian player Victor Sarkis.
Special Offer
Sign up for a Boylesports account and bet £10 to get up to £20 in free bets! Perfect offer for this tournament! Click the image below for this great offer! New accounts only. 18+ T&Cs apply. Gamble Aware.
Later Afternoon Session
Jamie Jones is very much the highest ranked player who will be taking to the baize in the second of the afternoon sessions. The Welsh player will be looking to book his place at Brentwood when he takes on Alfie Burden in a good looking game. The enigmatic Dechawat Poomjaeng returns to the tour in the other match in this session. He starts his season in this event and he will meet Alexander Ursenbacher for a place in the main draw.
Evening Session
The former European Masters winner Fan Zhengyi is a rare Chinese player who isn’t playing in the earlier sessions in the evening. He hasn’t started this season as well as he would have wanted but can make up for that when he takes on the veteran Andy Hicks. The other match in this session might very well turn out to be the pick of the matches on the day when Jamie Clarke takes on Ben Woollaston in the closest match of the day in terms of the rankings between the two players.
Betting
Ben Woollaston has been having a decent enough season but there wasn’t a whole lot to like about his performance in the Northern Ireland Open when he lost to a John Astley who couldn’t get over the finish line until he was literally gifted the chance to fall over it. While the Leicester man has been going well this season there is still a bit of an inconsistency which continues to hold him back and that makes him vulnerable to Jamie Clarke on Saturday evening.
Clarke hasn’t had that big week this season but he has had some impressive results in these qualifying tournaments with wins over Fan Zhengyi, Marco Fu and Lu Ning so he is dangerous at this level of the competitions. We know Clarke has been one of the more improved players over the last couple of years and if that display by Woollaston in Belfast was down to him being a favourite there would certainly be concerns here. At the prices I think Clarke is worth a bet.
Tips
Back J.Clarke to beat B.Woollaston for a 3/10 stake at 2.30 with Coral
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2022
