The final day of qualifying for the English Open takes place in Brentwood on Saturday ahead of the main draw beginning on Monday and by the end of the day we will know the identity of everyone who has progressed through the first stage.
A battle with a player in the top 32 in the rankings in the opening round of the main draw is the reward for the winner of the matches across the three sessions of play on Saturday and with the tournament starting two days later the winners will carry plenty of momentum forward with them.
Morning Session
We have two sets of matches in the morning session on Saturday with Matthew Stevens the headline draw in the opening one. He has a meeting with Dean Young for a spot in the main draw while Jordan Brown will be looking to qualify for another Home Nations tournament when he faces Andrew Pagett. There is an all-Chinese battle between Tian Pengfei and Jiang Jun while the other match first up sees Robbie Williams looking to progress when he takes on the Latvian rising star Artemijs Zizins.
There is no doubt what is the standout match in the second set of games in the morning. That is the one between the two veterans Jimmy White and Joe Perry. We have a former world champion on show in this session as well with Graeme Dott taking to the baize looking for the one win he needs to be in action next week. Ishpreet Singh Chadha will be his opponent. Sanderson Lam is also on show as he faces Long Zehuang with the other match seeing He Guoqiang meeting Wang Yuchen.
Afternoon Session
Just the three matches get the afternoon underway in the first of the two sets of games. Jackson Page is probably the leading light among them now. He meets Mostafa Dorgham for a shot at a top 32 player in the main draw. Daniel Wells is making decent progress on the tour and he’ll be looking to qualify for another main draw when he takes on Andrew Higginson while the other match in the first part of the afternoon sees Mark Davis facing off against Xing Zihao.
We are back to a full complement of matches in the second part of the afternoon with Jamie Jones one of the players entering the tournament at this stage. The amateur Joshua Thomond will be his opponent. Anthony Hamilton is in need of results before the end of the season to stay on tour so there is plenty of pressure on him in his match with Louis Heathcote while Jamie Clarke will look to make it through when he goes up against Hammad Miah. Xu Si faces Ka Wai Cheung in the other match.
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Evening Session
The final session of the qualifying competition will see the last four spots in the main draw from this week landed and the biggest name looking to snatch one of them is Marco Fu. He has a meeting with David Grace to overcome to be here next week. Thepchaiya Un-Nooh is another looking to book a spot in next week. Oliver Sykes will be his opponent. David Lilley takes on Ross Muir in another match but the pick of the evening games looks like the one between Jimmy Robertson, quarter finalist in Saudi Arabia last week, and Alexander Ursenbacher.
Betting
I’ll go with one bet for Saturday and that comes in the second part of the afternoon where I think Louis Heathcote is a fair bet to get the better of Anthony Hamilton. We have to go against the history of the previous record of these two because Hamilton has won the last three matches but they were all a fair way ago when Heathcote wasn’t really functioning too well. If anything the tables have turned now. Heathcote is playing much better and Hamilton is on the decline.
Heathcote has also had the advantage of having had a match this week so he’ll be familiar with conditions. That might be significant here because they are clearly going to be different from the humid ones the players experienced in Saudi Arabia. Heathcote didn’t just play a match but in four winning frames he made two centuries and a 90 and that is decent scoring form. Hamilton is clearly on the downturn, he has admitted that himself, and he has to grind matches out a bit more these days. If Heathcote scores like he did on Friday Hamilton might struggle to hold onto him. I think Heathcote is the bet here.
Tips
Back L.Heathcote to beat A.Hamilton for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Boylesports
Back him here:
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