The Shanghai Masters might only have finished in China on Sunday afternoon but that doesn’t stop another snooker event beginning in the UK on Monday as the qualifiers for the European Masters begin in Preston.
Most of the star names in the game have had their opening matches put back until Tuesday to allow those who were in China the opportunity to get back to the UK but there are some household names and interesting matches across the four sessions of best of seven frame matches on the opening day of the event.
Morning Session
There are eight matches in the morning session with two of them streamed on the internet. Those matches sees Peter Ebdon going up against Jamie Cope and Dominic Dale facing Thor Chuan Leong of Malaysia.
The other matches see Dechawat Poomjaeng taking on Fergal O’Brien, Noppon Saengkham playing Rod Lawler in an interesting match, Cao Yupeng against Michael Wild, Alfie Burden against Pakistan’s Hamza Akbar with Daniel Wells facing Sanderson Lam and Hossein Vafaei Ayouri going up against the amateur Daniel Womersley.
Early Afternoon Session
This is another session with eight matches with the streamed ones seeing Sam Baird taking on Zhao Xintong and Alan McManus playing Ian Burns with the Scot looking to show his World Championship run was no fluke.
There is a Chinese battle with Tian Pengfei playing Yan Bingtao while another Chinese raider Chen Zhe goes up against Jimmy Robertson. Two Wilson’s face each other when Gary plays Sydney with the other matches seeing Sean O’Sullivan playing Michael Georgiou, Hammad Miah playing Robbie Williams and Oliver Lines taking on Brandon Sargeant.
Late Afternoon Session
Tom Ford is on one of the streamed tables in this session. He faces Li Hang in a really good looking match for this stage of a tournament. Graeme Dott plays Andy Hicks on the other streamed table with Hicks looking for a decent run.
Away from the streamed tables we have Ashley Hugill playing Mitchell Mann, Joe Swail takes on Louis Heathcote while Mark Joyce against Eden Sharav looks a good match. Alex Borg meets Michael Rhodes and Anthony Hamilton goes up against Duane Jones.
Evening Session
The day of action concludes with eight more matches with Jimmy White being the centre of attention on one of the streamed tables when he faces Josh Boileau with Luca Brecel playing Zhou Yuelong on the other one.
Kritsanut Lertsattayatthorn faces Allan Taylor away from the streamed tables and then there are matches between Mark Davis and Paul Davison, Adam Duffy and Gareth Allen, Antony Parsons meets James Wattana, with Jack Lisowski playing Mike Dunn and David John faces the amateur Bradley Jones.
Betting
I’m not going to go too deep in with some of the players having been in China recently and the matches being the best of seven frames but there a couple of men who look decent value in their matches and I’ll take them.
Anthony Hamilton’s results don’t look fantastic but he hasn’t been that bad this season. A good number of his losses have been in deciding frames to half decent players so all he has been crying out for is a decent draw. He has a much more favourable draw here against Duane Jones and he’ll know the importance of making the most of that.
Jones is a capable player but he hasn’t been scoring that well in his recent matches and the one thing you have to do if you are going to beat Hamilton is score because we know he will. I fancy this best of seven distance is the best for Hamilton’s game these days and as such I’m happy to take him here.
The other one I like is Zhou Yuelong against Luca Brecel. Brecel has been very hot and cold this season so far and I don’t like it when he is inconsistent. It does mean that he could blow anyone away but the one thing we know in this match is that he is going to have to play well to beat the Chinese player because Yuelong is very good.
Yuelong shot to prominence when he won the World Cup last year but he had some very good wins on his own and while this season hasn’t kicked off how he would like I fancy being the centre of attention may bring out the best in him so I like him in this match.
Tips
Back A.Hamilton to beat D.Jones for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Paddy Power
Back him here:
Back Z.Yuelong to beat L.Brecel for a 4/10 stake at 2.25 with Betfred
Back him here:
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2016
