The action continues at the German Masters qualifying competition on Thursday when another six places at the Tempodrom in Berlin will be finalised and others will take a step closer to getting there inside the Morningside Arena in Leicester.
We saw some big names qualify on Wednesday and others fall by the wayside and plenty more star players will be on show across the three sessions of action over the course of an interesting looking Thursday.
Morning Session
There is only the one player in the top 16 of the world rankings on show in the morning session on Thursday. That is the former world champion Stuart Bingham who has a fairly awkward first round test of Ben Woollaston to try and overcome. Welsh Open winner Joe Perry is also on show in this session and he is another with an awkward looking test. He meets Oliver Lines while Dave Gilbert is the other immediately recognisable name taking to the tables first up. Andy Hicks is his opponent. The other three matches see Xu Si taking on Si Jiahui, Dylan Emery going up against Ryan Thomerson and John Astley facing off against Chris Wakelin.
Afternoon Session
Jack Lisowski is the biggest name of those looking to make it through to the main draw. Six places will be won and lost in this afternoon session with the UK Championship semi-finalist taking on Jackson Page. Ali Carter is another recognisable name on show. He meets Robbie Williams for a place in Berlin. Xiao Guodong is another one looking to make it through to the final stages. Hossein Vafaei stands in his way in a cracking looking contest. The three other matches sees James Cahill playing Zhang Anda, Elliot Slessor going up against Sanderson Lam and Liam Highfield meeting Ross Muir.
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Evening Session
We go back to the first round for the evening session where the man who will defend his Scottish Open crown next week, Luca Brecel, will be looking to make progress when he takes on Chang Bingyu but the attention is likely to be on one of the other tables as Stephen Hendry gets his campaign underway. He takes on Matthew Stevens and the other high profile match sees the UK Championship finalist Ding Junhui on show. He faces the former Welsh Open winner Jordan Brown. The other three matches sees Barry Pinches meeting Ben Mertens, Himanshu Jain taking on a motivated Lukas Kleckers and Robert Milkins facing off against Graeme Dott.
Betting
Robert Milkins is having a decent enough time of it at the minute. He has clearly taken plenty of confidence from his win at the Gibraltar Open last season. It wasn’t so much the win which will be helping him but the money that is on his ranking which means there isn’t really any pressure on him for a while. Milkins has made the third round of a couple of tournaments this season and hasn’t had many kind draws recently with him running into Ding Junhui in the final qualifying round for the UK Championship.
Dott is very much all or nothing these days but I’ve always felt that he doesn’t get on well with these qualifying events. He is a player who goes better in tournaments when he starts off at the venues whereas Milkins is a seasoned campaigner in the qualifiers. Milkins has a win over John Higgins this season which highlights that he is playing well. Dott was wiped out by Joe Perry in his latest match and didn’t play great in beating David Lilley to get into that contest. I think Milkins is more progressive of the two at the minute and I’ll back him here.
Tips
Back R.Milkins to beat G.Dott for a 3/10 stake at 2.05 with Betway
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