The German Masters gets underway on Wednesday with eight first round matches being played at the wonderful Tempodrom venue in Berlin.
Some big names are in action in the first day where there is two sessions of play. Defending champion Mark Selby, last year’s beaten finalist Shaun Murphy, Judd Trump, Mark Williams and Barry Hawkins all make their tournament bow in this opening day.
There are three matches in the afternoon. Mark Selby takes on Steven Hallworth on the TV table while Stephen Maguire goes up against Ken Doherty and Graeme Dott faces Tian Pengfei on the outside tables.
Selby is an overwhelming favourite and it isn’t hard to see why. He loves it here and is in decent nick but this is his first genuine match since The Masters where he was done up a bit by Ronnie. I’m often loathe to take Selby on big handicaps because he is all about the winning rather than the looking good so this is a match I’ll leave alone.
In fact there isn’t much I like in the afternoon at all. I’d be surprised if Doherty beat Maguire but the lines in that match are about right and it takes a better man than me to predict the form of Dott and Pengfei although the latter could be described as value in that match. Even so I’m happy to leave them alone.
Moving into the evening and all eyes will be on the match between Judd Trump and Ali Carter. Carter is a former champion in this tournament and tends to save his best for here while Trump was in sensational form in The Masters so this one should be an epic. Again a case can be made for Carter as value but it all looks about right to me.
Alan McManus faces Barry Hawkins, Ben Woollaston plays Shaun Murphy, Alfie Burden goes up against Anda Zhang and Martin Gould faces Mark Williams in the other matches in the evening session.
There isn’t a lot I like in the first two of those matches. Barring something strange it is hard to see the favourites beaten in those ones but I certainly like a couple in the other matches.
Although the head to head between Alfie Burden and Anda Zhang is a little dated it is interesting that Burden leads it 4-0. Their last meeting was back in 2012 but the Chinese player is no better now than he was then so I’m surprised Burden is the outsider here.
Burden is just coming into some form too. He made the quarter final of the most recent European Tour event where he took care of the likes of Matt Selt along the way and then he beat Ricky Walden in qualifying for this tournament so the Londoner is in good nick right now.
Given his improvement in form and his record against this opponent Burden looks a natural pick to get our betting for the tournament started.
Mark Williams is still performing to a high level but I suspect he’s vulnerable to Martin Gould and his aggressive style here. We saw at the weekend how Williams still isn’t completely flowing in his game and to give Gould easy chances isn’t usually the way to victory against him.
Gould is having a good season so far. He made the final in Australia and the quarter finals in Shanghai and in the UK Championship and with that form behind him he looks slightly overpriced in this encounter.
Back A.Burden to beat A.Zhang for a 4/10 stake at 2.10 with Coral
Back M.Gould to beat M.Williams for a 4/10 stake at 2.40 with Unibet
