After a hectic recent schedule the stars of the World Snooker tour have one last assignment before they break for the festive period and it comes in the form of the qualifying event for the German Masters which takes place over four days in Wigan from Thursday.
The German Masters is one of the biggest events on the circuit played in one of the best venues on the tour so the competition to make it to the final stages will be fierce so we should expect some highly competitive snooker over the four days of battle.
24 matches are slated to take place on the opening day of qualifying and there are some huge names involved right from the outset. Thursday is led by Judd Trump and Ding Junhui looking to go a step closer to Berlin when they face much lower ranked opponents in the afternoon session.
Stephen Maguire headlines the morning session along with the Gibraltar Open runner up Michael White while the evening is led by Ali Carter and Martin Gould who both have ambitions of a deep run in the main event.
Two matches in each session are on the live streaming consoles on the bookmaker websites and the live snooker feed so we will be able to run our eyes over the action throughout the day which is handy. All matches are the best of nine frames.
In truth the card throughout Thursday is a tricky looking one and there are no handicap lines which really jump out as must take bets so I’m largely going to keep my powder dry for the bigger and better bets that come later in the week.
I have to say given his woeful form I was hoping to take Ding Junhui on but I can’t bring myself to get involved in Gareth Allen even though Ding hasn’t looked right all season. I’d like to take him on with someone a bit better than Allen.
Ultimately I’m going with just one bet for the opening day and it involves taking on another player who has been awfully out of form for much of the season in Robert Milkins.
Milkins has always been one of those players that such is the speed he plays at that even being slightly off his game does some real damage to his chances and he has been losing plenty more matches than he’s been winning.
Milkins faces the Chinese lad Anda Zhang who is showing signs of progress at the minute. He had a good win over Graeme Dott in Gibraltar at the weekend and he has a win over Liang Wenbo this season too. Zhang is a decent scorer who will take advantage of the chances Milkins gives him and he looks a little overpriced given the struggles the more established Englishman is currently going through.
Back A.Zhang to beat R.Milkins for a 3/10 stake at 2.63 with Coral
Blog snooker YTD: +75.43pts
