The third day of action at the German Masters qualifying competition takes place inside the Morningside Arena in Leicester on Wednesday when six more players will book their spot at the Tempodrom in Berlin and plenty more will move one step closer to doing so.
The defending champion Zhao Xintong booked his place in the main draw on Tuesday and the likes of Neil Robertson will be looking to join him there on Wednesday. The exit of Mark Selby on Tuesday will put the big names on guard though.
Morning Session
Jack Lisowski is the headline name on show in the morning session on Wednesday. The UK Championship semi-finalist looks to be rounding into some decent form and he’ll be expected to overcome the challenge of Duane Jones. Hossein Vafaei is the next highest ranked player competing in this session when he goes up against the Irish player Aaron Hill while Zhou Yuelong will look to put that tame beating by Ronnie O’Sullivan in York behind him when he meets James Cahill. Three other matches take place in this morning session. They see Jackson Page meeting Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Craig Steadman facing Zhang Anda and Xiao Guodong battling with Alfie Burden.
Afternoon Session
As was the case on Tuesday, the afternoon session is the one which will see the six spots at the Tempodrom confirmed. Neil Robertson is the leading attraction looking to get there. He faces a tricky challenge against Alexander Ursenbacher who has already won two matches this week. UK Championship winner Mark Allen will look to follow that up by booking his place in Germany when he encounters a battle with Zhao Jianbo while Kyren Wilson will look to get back to the scene of one of his titles when he goes up against David Lilley. The former Masters champion Yan Bingtao plays David Grace while the other two matches in this session see Peng Yisong, the man who dumped Mark Selby out on Tuesday, facing Ian Burns and Martin Gould going up against Jimmy White who has found some good form recently.
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Evening Session
We go back to the first round in the evening session, one which was expected to see Ronnie O’Sullivan looking to move to within a win of Berlin but he has withdrawn which leaves Ali Carter as the highest ranked player on show. He faces off against Stuart Carrington while Lu Ning takes on Sanderson Lam. Liam Highfield is the only other member of the top 50 in the world on show in this session. He looked to have a winnable tie against Mohamed Ibrahim. Elsewhere, Elliot Slessor takes on Chen Zifan, Victor Sarkis meets Robbie Williams and Ross Muir, the man who benefitted from the withdrawal of O’Sullivan, goes up against Oliver Brown.
Betting
We saw Neil Robertson looking very ill when he was in UK Championship action last week and although he won his match on Tuesday he only made one 50 break in doing so which is unlike him so it might be that he hasn’t got over whatever the issue he was suffering with was and if that is the case a second match in two days isn’t exactly going to be ideal. He meets Alexander Ursenbacher who has looked good this week so far.
I wouldn’t say I’m confident the Swiss will win this match but he’s played 10 frames this week and won them all and ended his win on Tuesday with successive centuries and although he is up in class here, we know with his record against Ronnie O’Sullivan that he doesn’t fear anyone. This feels like it could be a closer match than the odds would suggest, especially with everything on the line in it in terms of making it through to Berlin. With Ursenbacher available at odds against with a 2.5 frame start I think he’s worth backing to win at least three frames.
Tips
Back A.Ursenbacher (+2.5 frames) to beat N.Robertson for a 3/10 stake at 2.10 with Betfair
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